“The prose is textured, viscous almost, an ooze of sweet honey shot through with golden light . . . A Language of Limbs is a novel of (impeccable) vibes and mood, a gay hymnal written from inside the guts of the two protagonists.”
–Yves Rees, Australian Book Review
Newcastle, Australia, 1972. On a sticky summer night, a choice must be made: To give in to queer desire or suppress it? To venture into the unknown or stay the course? In alternating chapters, we trace the two versions of a life that follow.
In one, a teenage girl is caught kissing her neighbor and is kicked out from her home. She lands at a queer communal home in Sydney called Uranian House, where she meets the people who will forever become her family. Meanwhile, in the second, a teenage girl pushes down her lustful dreams of her best friend and eventually makes her way to a university in Sydney to study English literature.
During pivotal moments, the physical space between these two women closes–like when they each meet the first great loves of their lives in 1977 at a protest, or when, almost a decade later, they are both rushed to the hospital with only a curtain between them. Through the AIDS crisis–and from classrooms to art galleries, beds to bars and hospitals to homes–we witness these two lives shadow each other until, finally and poignantly, they collide.
Author: Dylin Hardcastle
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Dutton
Published: 06/03/2025
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9780593852712
Language: English
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