Bodies of Light

After a photo of her spreads unexpectedly online, a man named Tony tracks her down. For years the woman he contacts has lived modestly in a country town, but his message is meant for Maggie, the child she once was. Taken into state care at five, she came out of the system under other names, first Josie and then Holly. Narrating her own life, not always reliably, from early childhood until sixty, she describes institutions and foster placements, poverty, isolation, abuse and grief. Confronted with memories she has kept to herself, she wonders whether a person can exist when no file and no other human being holds a record of her life, and what it will cost to bring her history out of the dark.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

448 pages in the original

Genres

Family, Coming of age (assigned by AI)

Set in

Australia

First published

2021

Author's age

31 when first published

ISBN

9781925773590 (Text Publishing, Australia)

9781922458957 (Text Publishing, Australia)

More

Wikidata