Bodies of Light

Jennifer Down's Miles Franklin Award-winning novel follows Maggie across four decades as she navigates childhood sexual abuse, foster care, addiction, and fractured relationships — and somehow keeps moving forward. Down's prose is precise and controlled, and Maggie's sardonic voice refuses to ask for pity, which makes her resilience feel earned rather than sentimental. The Guardian called it 'a remarkably empathic book,' and that's the right word: it understands its character deeply. Families and faith-community readers should know plainly that this novel contains depictions of child sexual abuse, drug addiction, a suicide attempt, and domestic violence. This is unflinching literary fiction for mature adult readers only. For those readers, it is one of the more significant Australian novels of recent years.