A Language of Limbs, Dylin Hardcastle
A Language of Limbs, Dylin Hardcastle
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A Language of Limbs

Author: Dylin Hardcastle

Narrator: Aisha Dee, Sonya Cullingford

Unabridged: 7 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 06/03/2025


Synopsis

Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Fiction
One of TIME’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2025

"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.

About The Author

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.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Alexandra on July 13, 2024

This was hands down the best thing I’ve ever read in my entire life. I didn’t know it was possible for someone to write so beautifully and poetically whilst telling the most amazing story at the same time. Every single word broke and remade me and I think I should reread this book yearly for the res......more

Goodreads review by Suz on September 22, 2024

Sometimes I know how I come across the books I read, this time I’m not even sure. Possibly I saw it during Pride month. I do love (that may sound strange) stories about AIDS as I too, had a family member die in St Vincent’s Sydney 1980's, as this story does. And he had ‘the cancer’ just like Thomas’......more

Goodreads review by Hannah on January 02, 2025

easiest 5 stars of my life.......more

Goodreads review by Summer on May 21, 2025

If you read one book during PRIDE month, it should be A Language of Limbs. A Language of Limbs is a story of love but most importantly it recounts the modern history of queer communities. Beginning in the early 20th century to present times the book covers the rise of the N- - i movement in the 30s,......more

Goodreads review by Celine on March 17, 2025

Books like A Language of Limbs are the reason I read in the first place. I feel stunned by the beauty within these pages and completely altered after finishing the very last one. We are presented with two limbs of life; limb one, limb two. In each limb, a young woman must decide whether to act on he......more


Quotes

One of TIME’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2025
Longlisted for the Stella Prize
Shortlisted for Dymocks Book of the Year 2024 in Australia

Most Anticipated by OUT Magazine, LGBTQ Reads, Book Riot, The Nerd Daily and Autostraddle


"Hardcastle imbues the book with poetry, history, and visual art, offering a love letter to the Australian queer community."
TIME

“Heartbreaking and not to be forgotten.”
USA Today, “Best Books of the Year”

"A vivid and poignant novel about one choice that changes everything."
—E! News

"A celebration of queer resilience and romantic possibility, it’s the rare sapphic novel that’s both tender and revolutionary."
Pride Source

"Sweeping across decades and tracing love, loss, protest, and survival, A Language of Limbs is an achingly beautiful meditation on identity, fate, and the countless lives we carry within us."
—Electric Lit

“[A Language of Limbs is] like gay, literary Sliding Doors. And it’s told in gorgeous, often fragmentary prose.”
Autostraddle

"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)

"Vivid and poignant, with flashes of the experimental and poetic, the novel serves as a record of queer life in Australia in the ’70s and ’80s and asks us to consider how and why we love."
Booklist

"A wholly original novel akin to Sylvia Plath’s “fig tree” analogy... A Language of Limbs is heartbreaking and poignant."
USA Today

“This novel is an exquisite thing, burning with desire.”
—2025 Stella Prize Judges

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


“Visceral and provocative. Mind-blowing and awe-inspiring. A fantastic achievement.”
—Soula Emmanuel, author of Wild Geese

"Dylin's writing is deeply evocative, sensual, and profound... I would love to read [A Language of Limbs], as if for the first time, again and again and again."
—Ella Baxter, author of Woo Woo, for Shelf Awareness

"Dylin Hardcastle’s novel carried me away like a tidal current. Expansive across time, yet intimate in its focus, A Language of Limbs is that rare book that’s equally poetic and propulsive—with twin protagonists who are impossible to shake. Nothing short of an instant queer classic."
—Benjamin Law, author of Gaysia

"Poetic, fresh and mesmerising, Hardcastle’s work is like nothing I have ever read. A Language of Limbs is full of feeling; a love story about the family we make ourselves. Upon finishing this book I was overwhelmed by a sense of, more. I am desperate for more stories like this."
—Jessie Stephens, author of Heartsick

"A life-affirming, deeply-felt novel of the decisions we make and the lives that unspool from them. To read A Language of Limbs is to be reminded of the power of queer joy and community. I loved it."
—Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rites

“An epic tale of Sapphic pleasure, pain and activism.”
The Big Issue (Australia)

“Tender and steamy . . . [A] story of aching almost, deep grief and exuberant joy that will appeal to readers of Emily Danforth and Jeanette Winterson . . . Hardcastle writes with all sensual faculties and earnestly depicts the full-on force of female desires.”
Books and Publishing (Australia)