Stag Dance

‘Two hours later, a chill rose off the long shadows and we had readied ourselves for the dance. I had my eyelashes darkened. He pricked his finger with the tip of a pocket-blade, and on the newly exposed globes of my cheeks, we made circles of rouge. I’d never shared much time with any other person. Never been so open and sharing and naked in the intentions of our bodily preparations. Not brother, not sister, not good-time girls, nor fellow jacks.’

Trans life past, present and future is explored in this kaleidoscopic follow-up to the Women’s Prize-nominated Detransition, Baby

‘Peters confronts the unruliness of our desires’ New Yorker

From the adventures of a lonely logger who, deep in the forest, joins his workmates to dance dressed as a woman, to the story of an obsessive boarding-school romance, to the dizzying spectacle of a gender apocalypse brought about by an unstable ex-girlfriend, Peters’ keen eye for the rough edges of trans community and desire reveals fresh possibilities. Acidly funny and breath-taking in its scope, with the inventive audacity of Lauren Groff or Jennifer Egan, Stag Dance provokes, unsettles and delights.

‘Torrey Peters captures the grandiose, heartfelt and sometimes mangled aspirations of queer and trans people’ – Chris Kraus

Format: Paperback
Pages: 304
Imprint: Serpent’s Tail UK
Publication date: 13/03/2025