A Language of Limbs
A Novel
Published on 3. June 2025
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-0-593-85271-2 (ISBN)
Description
Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Fiction
One of TIME’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2025
“[A] gay, literary Sliding Doors.”
—Autostraddle
“Heartbreaking and not to be forgotten.”
—USA Today, “Best Books of the Year”
A breathtaking, will-they-won’t-they love story and a tender epic that explores the weight of a choice, the love of community and how joy is found in even the darkest corners.
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.
One of TIME’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2025
“[A] gay, literary Sliding Doors.”
—Autostraddle
“Heartbreaking and not to be forgotten.”
—USA Today, “Best Books of the Year”
A breathtaking, will-they-won’t-they love story and a tender epic that explores the weight of a choice, the love of community and how joy is found in even the darkest corners.
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.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 233 mm
Width: 153 mm
Thickness: 29 mm
Weight
456 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-593-85271-2 (9780593852712)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Dylin Hardcastle (they/them) is an award-winning author, artist, and screenwriter. They are the author of Below Deck (2020), Breathing Under Water (2016), and Running Like China (2015). Their work has been published to critical acclaim in eleven territories and translated into eight languages. A Language of Limbs won the Kathleen Mitchell Award through Creative Australia. The novel has been optioned by Curio (Sony Pictures) and is in development.