Bodies of Light, Jennifer Down
Bodies of Light, Jennifer Down
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

Bodies of Light

Author: Jennifer Down

Narrator: Casey Withoos

Unabridged: 12 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/27/2022


Synopsis

So by the grace of a photograph that had inexplicably gone viral, Tony had found me. Or: he'd found Maggie. I had no way of knowing whether he was nuts or not; whether he might go to the cops. Maybe that sounds paranoid, but I don't think it's so ridiculous. People have gone to prison for much lesser things than accusations of child-killing . . .

A quiet, small-town existence. An unexpected Facebook message, jolting her back to the past. A history she's reluctant to revisit: dark memories and unspoken trauma, bruised thighs and warning knocks on bedroom walls, unfathomable loss.

She became a new person a long time ago. What happens when buried stories are dragged into the light?

This epic novel from the two-time Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelist of the Year is a masterwork of tragedy and heartbreak—the story of a life in full. Sublimely wrought in devastating detail, Bodies of Light confirms Jennifer Down as one of the writers defining her generation.

About Jennifer Down

Jennifer Down is a writer and editor. She was named a Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelist of the Year consecutively in 2017 and 2018. Our Magic Hour, her debut novel, was shortlisted for the 2014 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript. Her second book, Pulse Points, was the winner of the 2018 Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction and the 2018 Steele Rudd Award for a Short Story Collection in the Queensland Literary Awards, and was shortlisted for a 2018 NSW Premier's Literary Award. She lives in Naarm/Melbourne.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Bianca (Back, catching up) on July 19, 2022

WINNER OF THE MILES FRANKLIN LITERARY AWARD 2022 I've heard good things about this Miles Franklin long-listed novel, so I had to read it - it's my first Jennifer Down novel. This novel should contain trigger warnings - child sexual abuse, baby deaths, drug-taking, etc. Bodies of Light is narrated in......more

Goodreads review by Carol on May 15, 2025

All the stars. Loved this novel! A gifted writer that made me double check to see if this story is indeed fiction.......more

Goodreads review by zed on July 10, 2024

Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down I listened via Audio book and my first comment would be that Casey Withoos, the first-person narrator for protagonist Maggie’s story, was superb to my ears. She was able to tell the story in a kind of world-weary manner that suited the tragic challenges that could ha......more

Goodreads review by Jules on October 14, 2021

By far my most anticipated book of 2021, somehow I managed to turn away from any mention of Bodies of Light in an attempt to “go in blind” and succeeded. I didn’t know anything about the book except that it was supposedly beautiful and heartbreaking. It’s been a few days and I am still not sure how I......more

Goodreads review by Georgia on September 30, 2021

This book had the feel of being a multi-generational family saga, though in reality we are following one woman throughout her life, and she doesn't have much family (biological at least) to speak of. Though the content was difficult, Jennifer Down writes beautifully and controls her lens with such p......more