About the book: When Katharine is found dead at the foot of her stairs, it is the mystery of her life that consumes her daughter, Laura.
The medical examiner’s report, in which precious parts of Katharine’s body are weighed and categorised, motivates Laura to write her own version of events; to bear witness to the unbearable blank space between each itemised entry.
It forces her to confront a new version of the woman she knew only as her mother – a woman silenced by her own mother, and wronged by her husband. A woman who felt shackled by tradition and unable to love freely.
With the heart of a memoir and the pace of a thriller, An Unremarkable Body reveals an overwhelming desire to make sense of an unfulfilled life – and to prove that an unremarkable body does not mean an unremarkable life.
About the author: Elisa Lodato grew up in London and read English at Pembroke College, Cambridge. After graduating she went to live in Japan where she spent a year teaching, travelling and learning to speak the language. On returning to the UK she spent many happy years working for Google before training to become an English teacher. Helping pupils to search for meaning in a text inspired Elisa to take up the pen and write her own. Her first novel, An Unremarkable Body, was longlisted for the Bath Novel Award 2016. Elisa lives in Gloucestershire with her husband and two children.
My Review: I’m not really able to give this book the review it deserves, because I don’t think anything I can say can express just how impressed I was with this book. An Unremarkable Body is a stunning debut which at times felt so personal and raw it was hard to believe it is a fictional story.
The main character Laura has discovered her mother lying dead at the foot of her stairs. Struggling with her grief and emotions Laura tries to discover who her mother really was through extracts of the Medical Examiners Post Mortem report and re-examine her past.
This truly is a beautiful book and I was completely absorbed in the story and Laura’s journey. This story is emotional, poignant and at times a gripping thriller, An Unremarkable Body is a book that I believe will stay in my thoughts for a long time.
