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In a Florida almost claustrophobic with life, New Zealand-born Georgie’s marriage has stagnated. But there’s no room to attend to it, as dangers small and large crowd in: teeth break, her son can't find his words, there’s something in her husband’s eye, termites swarm the neighbourhood, and she finds a dead boy in the burning woods.
And then – there’s Jason.
As the repercussions of her discovery of the body, and her affair, come to land, Georgie digs deep, examining the undercurrents of her actions with curiosity, humour and cutting emotional intelligence. Arms & Legs is a deliriously insightful excavation of love, desire, parenthood and relationships at their best, and worst.
'An astute, fine-grained novel about the fires we light to sustain ourselves – and what happens when they get out of control.' —Emily Perkins, author of The Forrests
'Arms & Legs is gritty, sexy novel that will have you aching for its characters, for the things they can and cannot say to each other. Lane’s taut control of the narrative echoes the story’s fecund, humid Florida landscape – controlled burn-offs, nature’s relentless assaults on besieged boundaries of civilised urban life – and her ability to sustain suspense lasts well beyond the final page.' —Sue Orr, author of Loop Tracks
Chloe Lane earned her MFA in Fiction at the University of Florida. She is also a graduate of the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington, and the founding editor of Hue+Cry Press. Her first novel was The Swimmers (2020).
Cover paintings: David Cauchi
Design: Rose Miller, Kraftwork
