A Language of Limbs

A Novel

De: Dylin Hardcastle

"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

A breathtaking, sliding-doors, 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.

©2025 Dylin Hardcastle (P)2025 Penguin Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

Longlisted for the Stella Prize

Shortlisted for Dymocks Book of the Year 2024 in Australia

Most Anticipated by The Nerd Daily and LGBTQ Reads

"Hardcastle handily crafts two distinct voices for the alternating story lines, revealing the ripple effects of choosing one path over another. It’s a captivating display of how one decision can shape a life."—Publishers Weekly (starred)

“A Language of Limbs is a queer novel in vital, masterful conversation with itself, and Hardcastle’s visceral, propulsive prose inexorably and generously draws the reader into this conversation—about the violence of metamorphosis, the joyful confusion between self and other, and all the ways we strive to create meaning on the spectrum between chance and destiny. This book will stay with you.”—Olivia Wolfgang-Smith, author of Mutual Interest

"A Language of Limbs is an ecstatic world of a queer love story. Hardcastle's vivid prose transported me to a queer past and future rooted in community and love, even amid grief. Sprawling yet exquisitely intimate."—Jules Ohman, author of Body Grammar