Written on the Body is a short novel by British author Jeanette Winterson. Several international publications followed the original 1992 publication of the book. The text, which is a first-person narrative, is directed at an adult reading audience. The narrative, which presents accounts of numerous love affairs, also ruminates on the nature of love, fidelity, spirituality, and death. Winterson, who was raised by members of a Pentecostal Church, trained as a missionary and started to evangelize and write sermons at an early age. Although she left this religious sect as a teenager, her background likely explains the various Biblical allusions found throughout the text.

Plot Summary

An anonymous narrator, whose gender the author does not identify, tells the story of a passionate love affair with a beautiful, red-haired woman named Louise Rosenthal. Louise is married to an eminent cancer research physician, Elgin Rosenthal, who disappointed Louise when he gave up his dreams of aiding people in Third World countries to pursue more lucrative pharmaceutical studies. Elgin’s career decision is an important plot device that grows in significance when Louise is discovered to be suffering from leukemia, a cancer of the blood.

Louise has experienced both physical and emotional troubles; she has suffered multiple miscarriages and she is unhappy in her marriage. These problems make her susceptible to the discovery of love and happiness with the narrator, towards whom Louise has been attracted for over two years. Louise desires to leave her husband Elgin, but the narrator suggests that Louise take some time in making this decision, suggesting a confusing reluctance to commit. In an effort to end the affair which will inevitably lead to a divorce that he does not want for professional reasons, Elgin informs the narrator that Louise is suffering from leukemia. He explains to the narrator that his wife’s chances of survival will be best if she undergoes state-of-the-art treatment at the Swiss medical facility that he directs, which will only be available to her if she stays with him. This emotional double bind inspires the narrator to make a unilateral decision that the narrator will regret for the rest of the novel.

Without consulting Louise, the narrator ends their relationship by leaving Louise; this separation ensures that Louise will return to Elgin and that she will have the opportunity to receive the best treatment he has promised for her illness. Though the narrator means well, the narrator disregards Louise’s feelings towards the decision and abandons Louise, who must now face the realities of her unhappy marriage and her husband’s infidelity on her own. In an effort to mitigate the effects of this heartbreaking decision, the narrator leaves London and rents a disheveled cottage in the north of England, hoping to find anonymity, relief, and distraction by working in a local wine bar, where she develops a quasi-friendship with the manager, Gail Right. Though Gail has romantic feelings towards the narrator, Gail points out that the narrator did Louise a major disservice by deciding Louise’s future without allowing her to contribute to the decision herself.

When the narrator returns to London to find Louise, the narrator is unable to find Louise. The narrator, whose emotional world is in turmoil, gets into a physical altercation with Elgin, who is divorced from Louise and involved in a new relationship. The narrator, believing Louise to be traveling abroad sustained by her divorce settlement, travels north and returns to her cottage in Yorkshire, where Louise emerges from the kitchen. Both Louise and the narrator are overjoyed at their reunion, and the novel ends optimistically.