The Lost Language of the Skin

The Intimate Laws

The Lost Language of the Skin

One person can read the word on Ingrid’s body, and she refuses.

In development

The story

What waits inside

Every person is born carrying one word in an unknown language. Exactly one other person can read it, understanding the meaning perfectly without being able to translate it into ordinary speech.

Linguist Ingrid has studied body-words for forty years while the script on her own ribcage remained unread. In a Reykjavík bookbindery, she meets Freyja, who recognizes it instantly and flinches at Ingrid’s touch.

Freyja will not say the word. Reading another person is an intimacy, not an obligation, and speaking Ingrid’s could bind both women to a meaning neither can control. To be known, Ingrid must first accept that legibility is not something she is owed.

The word belongs to her body; its meaning belongs between them.

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Book details

Series
The Intimate Laws
Availability
In development
Language
English
Publisher
LPH98.lifestyle
Author
L.P.H. Nordhaven
Reading order
A complete standalone novel