Stag Dance: A Novel & Stories

The kaleidoscopic follow-up to the bestselling Detransition, Baby

In this collection of one novel and three novellas, Torrey Peters’s keen eye for the rough edges of community and desire push the limits of trans writing.

In Stag Dance, the titular novel, a group of restless lumberjacks working an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance which some of them will attend as women. When the broadest, strongest, plainest of the axemen announces his intention to dance as a woman, he finds himself caught in a strange rivalry with a pretty young jack, provoking a cascade of obsession, jealousy, and betrayal that will culminate on the big night in an astonishing vision of gender and transition. 

Three startling novellas surround Stag Dance: Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones imagines a gender apocalypse brought about by an unstable ex-girlfriend. In The Chaser, a secret romance between roommates at a Quaker boarding school brings out intrigue and cruelty. In the last novella, The Masker, a party weekend on the Las Vegas strip turns dark when a young crossdresser must choose between two guides: a handsome mystery man who objectifies her in thrilling ways, or a cynical veteran trans woman offering unglamorous sisterhood.

Acidly funny and breathtaking in its scope, with the inventive audacity of George Saunders or Jennifer Egan, Stag Dance provokes, unsettles and delights.

Story Locale:a dystopic future; the Las Vegas strip; a Quaker boarding school; 20th century logging camp

About the Author

Torrey Peters is the bestselling author of the novel Detransition, Baby, which won the PEN/Hemingway award for debut fiction. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Awards, a finalist for the Brooklyn Public Library Award, and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. She has an MFA from the University of Iowa and an MA in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth. Torrey rides a pink motorcycle and splits her time between Brooklyn and an off-grid cabin in Vermont.

Author Residence: Brooklyn, NY

Author Hometown: Chicago, IL