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Stag Dance
In this collection of one novel and three stories, bestselling author 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 in an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance that some of them will volunteer to attend as women. When the broadest, strongest, plainest of the axmen 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 stories 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 story, “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.
In Stag Dance, the titular novel, a group of restless lumberjacks working in an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance that some of them will volunteer to attend as women. When the broadest, strongest, plainest of the axmen 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 stories 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 story, “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.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published March 11, 2025
617 people are currently reading
26.7k people want to read
About the author
Torrey Peters
10 books1,576 followersTorrey Peters is the author of the novel Detransition, Baby, published by One World/Random House, which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. She is also the authors of the novellas Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones and The Masker. She has an MFA from the University of Iowa and a Masters in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth. Torrey rides a pink motorcycle and splits her time between Brooklyn and an off-grid cabin in Vermont.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 374 reviews
March 26, 2025
we're on sophomore novel watch
(when you really liked an author's debut and you're nervously anticipating their next book)
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
(when you really liked an author's debut and you're nervously anticipating their next book)
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
March 11, 2025
Stag Dance is on sale today! Run, don’t walk, to your nearest bookstore, because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this book for months—it’s that good. I honestly love everything about it.
I love how the four stories really and truly feel like they belong together, each story casting new light on the stories before and after, even though they’re all so different. I love how fucked up and real and ridiculous these stories are—all four of them—how lovely, romantic, perverse, generous, absurd. I love how it starts in the future and ends in a swiftly-receding present, but spends most of its time snowbound at an illegal logging camp, in an ambiguous, near mythic past. It made me want to read lumberjack novels all winter. It made me want to write a lumberjack novel of my own. It made me want to pin a brown triangle to my pants and show up to work drunk and wander out the back door into the woods with a blinking lantern and chop wood in a pioneer dress and dance.
I’ve been listening—like the rest of the world, I take it—to “Good Luck, Babe!” You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling. I’m the kind of queer person who is either blindingly visible or comfortably invisible. My choice. How simple, for me, to navigate the world as who I’m not. But navigate the world as who you’re not—is that not then a considerable part of who you are? Selves multiply indiscriminately. Logic demands that we cannot be what we aren’t. Is the illusion of falseness just another bitter artifact of capitalist self-fashioning? Or am I asking the wrong questions? Generally, temperamentally, I have little desire to draw attention to myself. But you’d have to stop the world… Spend too much time vanishing and your whole life starts to go gray around the edges. Or put it plainly, why not? Spend too much time as a man... something I am and am not, like Schrödinger's cat (look in the box—it’s a gender reveal party!)
Our bodies, our desires. These soft fleshy vessels—I’m tempted to say that we inhabit them, but that is just Christianity speaking through me, no? A soul—divine spark in flawed earthly vessel. Even as we muster our forces for a full frontal attack on binary gender, this other binary is in our sights: soul and body, mind and flesh, spirit and dust. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. I call bullshit.
None of it makes sense, because we don’t choose anything and somehow we choose everything. Because our bodies and our desires aren’t ours, not really—they’re something we do with other people, something we make and something we’re given and a series of stupid frustrating questions without answers that only make sense on Tuesday mornings and Friday nights and crack up into our own homegrown youtube oblivion the moment we try—fools that we are—to consider them dispassionately.
And so what choice do we have? We turn to stories. These four are some of the best.
I love how the four stories really and truly feel like they belong together, each story casting new light on the stories before and after, even though they’re all so different. I love how fucked up and real and ridiculous these stories are—all four of them—how lovely, romantic, perverse, generous, absurd. I love how it starts in the future and ends in a swiftly-receding present, but spends most of its time snowbound at an illegal logging camp, in an ambiguous, near mythic past. It made me want to read lumberjack novels all winter. It made me want to write a lumberjack novel of my own. It made me want to pin a brown triangle to my pants and show up to work drunk and wander out the back door into the woods with a blinking lantern and chop wood in a pioneer dress and dance.
I’ve been listening—like the rest of the world, I take it—to “Good Luck, Babe!” You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling. I’m the kind of queer person who is either blindingly visible or comfortably invisible. My choice. How simple, for me, to navigate the world as who I’m not. But navigate the world as who you’re not—is that not then a considerable part of who you are? Selves multiply indiscriminately. Logic demands that we cannot be what we aren’t. Is the illusion of falseness just another bitter artifact of capitalist self-fashioning? Or am I asking the wrong questions? Generally, temperamentally, I have little desire to draw attention to myself. But you’d have to stop the world… Spend too much time vanishing and your whole life starts to go gray around the edges. Or put it plainly, why not? Spend too much time as a man... something I am and am not, like Schrödinger's cat (look in the box—it’s a gender reveal party!)
Our bodies, our desires. These soft fleshy vessels—I’m tempted to say that we inhabit them, but that is just Christianity speaking through me, no? A soul—divine spark in flawed earthly vessel. Even as we muster our forces for a full frontal attack on binary gender, this other binary is in our sights: soul and body, mind and flesh, spirit and dust. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. I call bullshit.
None of it makes sense, because we don’t choose anything and somehow we choose everything. Because our bodies and our desires aren’t ours, not really—they’re something we do with other people, something we make and something we’re given and a series of stupid frustrating questions without answers that only make sense on Tuesday mornings and Friday nights and crack up into our own homegrown youtube oblivion the moment we try—fools that we are—to consider them dispassionately.
And so what choice do we have? We turn to stories. These four are some of the best.
Want to read
August 14, 2024i'm seated. the indie booksellers are scared and asking me to leave because it’s ‘not march yet’ but i’m simply too seated
March 19, 2025
This is a collection that is not afraid to put trans characters in environments usually unfriendly to them. The fact that the characters are nuanced, multifaceted, and refuse to be boring tokenism—without minimizing the trans aspects of their lives—is actually quite impressive. I really had no idea where the stories were going. One moment they were sexy, the next disturbing, amusing, dystopian, or touching. Three of the four are great. The small novel is just okay, but that's how collections are. It's a bold, unpredictable read that’s well worth your time, if you ask me.
October 26, 2024
Stag Dance is a genre-defying look into transness, identity, community, gender exploration, and sexuality. In "three novellas and one novel" Peters take us on a wild ride with a varied cast of main characters - a contagion survivor, a Quaker student, a giant lumberjack, and a young crossdresser. The settings, plots, characters, and tones are all unique, but essentially each story deals with a character exploring their identity and how they themselves and others perceive them. The collection doesn't shy away from uncomfortable truths - violence, transphobia, misogyny, homophobia, etc. - but it also doesn't shy away from exploring the beauty in someone being able to express themselves and be seen (maybe for the first time) as that expression.
In the acknowledgements, the author says these stories were written to "puzzle out.. the inconvenient aspects of my never ending transition." I gobbled up every single story and would honestly read each of these as expanded standalone novels.
My personal ranking of the stories:
1. The Chaser (menacing, uncomfortable, sweet, violent, frustrating)
2. The Masker (honestly, same as above lol)
3. Stag Dance (intriguing, dangerous, thrilling, unique. I think I'd benefit from a re-read, especially in the tall-tale / Agropelter symbolism)
4. Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones (conceptually interesting, not a personal favorite because I've read and seen tons of contagion stories. Reminded me a bit of Gretchen Felker-Martin, although I believe this story was written first)
Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this in exchange for an honest review.
In the acknowledgements, the author says these stories were written to "puzzle out.. the inconvenient aspects of my never ending transition." I gobbled up every single story and would honestly read each of these as expanded standalone novels.
My personal ranking of the stories:
1. The Chaser (menacing, uncomfortable, sweet, violent, frustrating)
2. The Masker (honestly, same as above lol)
3. Stag Dance (intriguing, dangerous, thrilling, unique. I think I'd benefit from a re-read, especially in the tall-tale / Agropelter symbolism)
4. Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones (conceptually interesting, not a personal favorite because I've read and seen tons of contagion stories. Reminded me a bit of Gretchen Felker-Martin, although I believe this story was written first)
Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this in exchange for an honest review.
February 26, 2025
Overall I liked this collection a lot. I loved how Peters was challenging gender and how it shows up in much more complicated, messy, and nuanced ways. I loved the way she also was exploring stereotypes and playing with the sinister side of gender politics and performance. Also a lot of play with genre constraints and tropes. Fun. The title novella was a bit long and schiticky for me, but still solid. The 2nd and 4th stories were my standouts.
February 9, 2025
Wow, wow, WOW!
Thank you NetGalley, Torrey Peters, and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
I was absolutely blown away by this. This is a collection of 4 novellas and each one is very different but all very trans with a lot of repeated themes. Each novella displays a mastery of both writing and storytelling.
Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones: sci-fi and dystopian and edging into horror. A trans woman creates a drug that completely turns off sex hormone production- and it’s contagious. The idea is that once it spreads everyone will have to choose their gender, but of course there are some unintended consequences. What I loved most about this was the incredibly toxic relationship between the narrator and her frenemy/ex-lover Lexi.
The Chaser: Another very toxic relationship, this time between two teenagers at boarding school. One of them coming to terms with their identity, the other coming to terms with his sexuality. There is a lot of drama, mixed signals, petty revenge and sabotage.
Stag Dance: The main novella and longest of the collection. Told from the POV of a Paul Bunyan type character who is part of an illegal logging operation. The manager of the operation decides to hold a "stag dance" where any of the men can choose to be treated like women if they wear a fabric triangle over their crotch. Paul Bunyan wants to wear a triangle and be courted, but he’s got some competition with the camp beauty- Lisen. There is yet another toxic relationship between these two who are allies at times and other times…. Not.
The Masker: A horror(ish) story where the main character isn’t yet sure about their identity, but is experimenting with cross dressing and forced feminization erotica. Then they meet an older trans woman named Sally who takes them under her wing, but she's a little overbearing. There’s also a mysterious “masker” who is kind of creepy but also kind of enticing.
Thank you NetGalley, Torrey Peters, and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
I was absolutely blown away by this. This is a collection of 4 novellas and each one is very different but all very trans with a lot of repeated themes. Each novella displays a mastery of both writing and storytelling.
Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones: sci-fi and dystopian and edging into horror. A trans woman creates a drug that completely turns off sex hormone production- and it’s contagious. The idea is that once it spreads everyone will have to choose their gender, but of course there are some unintended consequences. What I loved most about this was the incredibly toxic relationship between the narrator and her frenemy/ex-lover Lexi.
The Chaser: Another very toxic relationship, this time between two teenagers at boarding school. One of them coming to terms with their identity, the other coming to terms with his sexuality. There is a lot of drama, mixed signals, petty revenge and sabotage.
Stag Dance: The main novella and longest of the collection. Told from the POV of a Paul Bunyan type character who is part of an illegal logging operation. The manager of the operation decides to hold a "stag dance" where any of the men can choose to be treated like women if they wear a fabric triangle over their crotch. Paul Bunyan wants to wear a triangle and be courted, but he’s got some competition with the camp beauty- Lisen. There is yet another toxic relationship between these two who are allies at times and other times…. Not.
The Masker: A horror(ish) story where the main character isn’t yet sure about their identity, but is experimenting with cross dressing and forced feminization erotica. Then they meet an older trans woman named Sally who takes them under her wing, but she's a little overbearing. There’s also a mysterious “masker” who is kind of creepy but also kind of enticing.
Read
April 6, 2025Loved itttttt!!
January 16, 2025
A playful and experimental collection that has a lot of great commentary, but struggled to keep my interest at times. I think part of this is just the format. Going from short stories into a novella then back to a short story makes the novella feel glaringly long. I liked the short stories for what they were, and I didn’t hate the titular novella, but it felt needlessly long. The stories also feel like they’re lacking a sense of cohesion - I get that Peters wanted to republish some of her earlier stories, but I wish there was more of a thread between entries (beyond commentary on gender).
Peters has a lot of insightful things to say about gender and gender roles across the four entries. It’s hard to encapsulate them all, but I’d say it really interrogates the idea of gender as a performance. There are instances of gender euphoria, questioning, and transitioning that all feel fresh and innovative.
Stag Dance takes every opportunity to explore the confines of gender and then push them further. It’s a unique collection and I still wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to certain readers. The individual entries are stronger than the sum of their parts, and at another time I think I would have enjoyed this more. No real standouts, but also no real boogers either!
Peters has a lot of insightful things to say about gender and gender roles across the four entries. It’s hard to encapsulate them all, but I’d say it really interrogates the idea of gender as a performance. There are instances of gender euphoria, questioning, and transitioning that all feel fresh and innovative.
Stag Dance takes every opportunity to explore the confines of gender and then push them further. It’s a unique collection and I still wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to certain readers. The individual entries are stronger than the sum of their parts, and at another time I think I would have enjoyed this more. No real standouts, but also no real boogers either!
March 14, 2025
Perfect and chilling. Explores desire- for transformation, for the self, for others- both clinically and intimately, painting portraits of characters warped by their longing. I'll be thinking about "The Chaser" for a long time.
March 12, 2025
ARC gifted by publisher
rounding up on the strength of The Chaser
Peters has a way of getting you to follow along even when you have no clue what is happening. You just trust her. I don’t mean that her work is overly complicated or obtuse, quite the opposite actually. I would describe her writing as inviting, tender, smart, funny, and bold. Just reading that makes me realize that that’s how I would describe this book overall. What I really mean though is that Peters will drop you in a situation with certain dynamics or a particular vocabulary and trusts you to figure it out or to read between the lines.
You’re either her audience or you learn to be.
In this collection she uses her wit and insight to explore ideas of gender, performance and desire with the use of different genres. What is genre if not a form of dress up? This is risky and exciting.
Infect Your Friends And Loved Ones - a spec fic and revenge fantasy rolled into one. What if everyone was dependent on hormone injections to breed? What if you can’t get over or get rid of that toxic ex? I honestly wanted more from this one. I needed both more character and world development.
The Chaser - a coming of age/ boarding school drama that ended up being the heart of the collection for me. I felt the overly complicated feelings of the characters here and was broken by the end. I went from gd it Robbie, to oh no Robbie 😭. My god do we spiral in this one. How much do you risk for desire? What if you don’t even understand your desires? Can we manipulate others' choices or actions? I would have loved it if the whole book just followed these two characters at different points in their lives.
Stag Dance - maybe a tall tale, maybe a western? A dance where lumberjacks choose the gender they want to attend as. Unlike Infect, I wanted this one to be tightened up. If anything this one highlights Peters’ mastery of how language shapes our understanding of gender and what ‘transition’ can mean. Taking the idea of costumes and play into such a specific setting is so perfectly her.
The Masker - horror in Vegas. A ‘sissy’ must choose between their forced feminization fantasies or the reality of transitioning and all the consequences that come along with it. What do we really want? And are we going to choose what is good for us or accept who we are? Freaky and wild.
rounding up on the strength of The Chaser
Peters has a way of getting you to follow along even when you have no clue what is happening. You just trust her. I don’t mean that her work is overly complicated or obtuse, quite the opposite actually. I would describe her writing as inviting, tender, smart, funny, and bold. Just reading that makes me realize that that’s how I would describe this book overall. What I really mean though is that Peters will drop you in a situation with certain dynamics or a particular vocabulary and trusts you to figure it out or to read between the lines.
You’re either her audience or you learn to be.
In this collection she uses her wit and insight to explore ideas of gender, performance and desire with the use of different genres. What is genre if not a form of dress up? This is risky and exciting.
Infect Your Friends And Loved Ones - a spec fic and revenge fantasy rolled into one. What if everyone was dependent on hormone injections to breed? What if you can’t get over or get rid of that toxic ex? I honestly wanted more from this one. I needed both more character and world development.
The Chaser - a coming of age/ boarding school drama that ended up being the heart of the collection for me. I felt the overly complicated feelings of the characters here and was broken by the end. I went from gd it Robbie, to oh no Robbie 😭. My god do we spiral in this one. How much do you risk for desire? What if you don’t even understand your desires? Can we manipulate others' choices or actions? I would have loved it if the whole book just followed these two characters at different points in their lives.
Stag Dance - maybe a tall tale, maybe a western? A dance where lumberjacks choose the gender they want to attend as. Unlike Infect, I wanted this one to be tightened up. If anything this one highlights Peters’ mastery of how language shapes our understanding of gender and what ‘transition’ can mean. Taking the idea of costumes and play into such a specific setting is so perfectly her.
The Masker - horror in Vegas. A ‘sissy’ must choose between their forced feminization fantasies or the reality of transitioning and all the consequences that come along with it. What do we really want? And are we going to choose what is good for us or accept who we are? Freaky and wild.
Read
March 6, 2025Torrey Peters's critically acclaimed 2021 debut novel Detransition, Baby quickly became one of the most popular and well-known trans novels ever written. Needless to say, her follow-up is highly anticipated! It includes three short stories and a novel. Stag Dance follows a group of lumberjacks who plan a dance that requires some of them to volunteer to dance as women. I'll let the description say the rest: "When the broadest, strongest, plainest of the axmen 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."
—Danika Ellis, 11 Must-Read New Queer Books Out in March 2025
—Danika Ellis, 11 Must-Read New Queer Books Out in March 2025
March 30, 2025
Each story was incredibly immersive. The lumberjack lingo wore on me a bit, but when it was over, I wanted more. I will read anything Torrey Peters writes.
April 3, 2025
Stellar — even better than Detransition, Baby, inasmuch as this collection took itself seriously as a trans literary intervention, a catalog of complex, contradictory, and often challenging experiences both lived and speculated upon. Peters has truly mastered the short story, and this is the form in which she most shines — every piece in this collection sticks in my memory like a blade and shines on its own. Taken together, Stag Dance has mapped sites of trans and transed (because many of these stories index trans less as a singular identity and more as an orientation or set of lifeways) survival, pain, and lust that that I have rarely, if ever, seen on the page before. Just excellent.
November 25, 2024
Holy dread
March 22, 2025
4.5
Stag Dance by Torrey Peters is a remarkable book. It's four separate stories that, while very different, play off from and compliment each other wonderfully.
This book is beautiful. It's bonkers. Some elements are funny and far fetched. Some are frightening and familiar. All are incredibly human.
Transgressive trans lit at it's finest. I'll eagerly be checking out the rest of Torrey's work.
4.5 / 5
Stag Dance by Torrey Peters is a remarkable book. It's four separate stories that, while very different, play off from and compliment each other wonderfully.
This book is beautiful. It's bonkers. Some elements are funny and far fetched. Some are frightening and familiar. All are incredibly human.
Transgressive trans lit at it's finest. I'll eagerly be checking out the rest of Torrey's work.
4.5 / 5
March 19, 2025
3.75⭐
Very intriguing and thought-provoking.
This was my first time reading Torrey Peters' work. I'm intrigued by this work, mostly because I found the writing quite good. Two of the stories - "The Masker" and "Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones" - seem to have been previously released works by the author. I can tell there is a bit of an evolution with her writing style, as some stories are stronger than others. My personal favorite, besides the titular work, was "The Chaser" for its emotional depth and intriguing storyline.
All of the pieces collected in this book center around concepts of gender and sexuality. What does it mean to transition? How do assumed gender stereotypes impact one's decision about how they choose to identify? How much does sexuality impact gender, and vice versa?
I think this novel gives a lot of food for thought. Of course, this is coming from my personal opinion as a cis-gendered gay man, so take this review with a grain of salt; I only know so much about transgender issues and experiences. That said, I do believe this book offers a lot of great prompts for discussion and gets the reader thinking about these preconceived notions we may take for granted.
Very intriguing and thought-provoking.
This was my first time reading Torrey Peters' work. I'm intrigued by this work, mostly because I found the writing quite good. Two of the stories - "The Masker" and "Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones" - seem to have been previously released works by the author. I can tell there is a bit of an evolution with her writing style, as some stories are stronger than others. My personal favorite, besides the titular work, was "The Chaser" for its emotional depth and intriguing storyline.
All of the pieces collected in this book center around concepts of gender and sexuality. What does it mean to transition? How do assumed gender stereotypes impact one's decision about how they choose to identify? How much does sexuality impact gender, and vice versa?
I think this novel gives a lot of food for thought. Of course, this is coming from my personal opinion as a cis-gendered gay man, so take this review with a grain of salt; I only know so much about transgender issues and experiences. That said, I do believe this book offers a lot of great prompts for discussion and gets the reader thinking about these preconceived notions we may take for granted.
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March 30, 2025
Overall, a bit too literary for my tastes?
Yet compulsively readable.
Heavy, heavy warnings for transphobia, nonconsensual acts, graphic animal death, and intense self-loathing.
Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones
In a future where you have to choose your gender after the human (and possibly animal) body no longer produces gender hormones, a tension rages, filled with anger toward those believed to have started the epidemic. An interesting premise, but it didn't feel as fully realized as I'd wanted it to be.
The Chaser
At a Quaker boarding school, two students engage in a tryst, to disastrous effects. I kinda liked this one more, as it depicted a student who was dangerously manipulative and awful and played the victim to get what they wanted. I was stalked in college, not at all in the way this was, and it brought some really startling flashbacks.
Stag Dance
Weirdly, I felt like this was too long. And I got tired of reading about Babe's fugly mug. It was okay.
Masker
A young trans woman at a weekend party chooses between a seductively controlling fetishist and the ex-DEA trans woman offering tepidly unglamorous sisterhood. This one just felt icky.
Yet compulsively readable.
Heavy, heavy warnings for transphobia, nonconsensual acts, graphic animal death, and intense self-loathing.
Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones
In a future where you have to choose your gender after the human (and possibly animal) body no longer produces gender hormones, a tension rages, filled with anger toward those believed to have started the epidemic. An interesting premise, but it didn't feel as fully realized as I'd wanted it to be.
The Chaser
At a Quaker boarding school, two students engage in a tryst, to disastrous effects. I kinda liked this one more, as it depicted a student who was dangerously manipulative and awful and played the victim to get what they wanted. I was stalked in college, not at all in the way this was, and it brought some really startling flashbacks.
Stag Dance
Weirdly, I felt like this was too long. And I got tired of reading about Babe's fugly mug. It was okay.
Masker
A young trans woman at a weekend party chooses between a seductively controlling fetishist and the ex-DEA trans woman offering tepidly unglamorous sisterhood. This one just felt icky.
February 28, 2025
3.75⭐️
A very solid follow-up to Detransition, Baby!
Stag Dance is a novel, cocooned by a series of short stories. The short stories were exceptional. Sharp explorations of gender, sexuality, and personal identity. I couldn’t pick a favorite if I tried—all left me unsettled, reeling or both.
The titular novel, Stag Dance, I had to skip through. It unfortunately did not work for me.
Regardless, this collection solidified for me that Torrey Peters is an author to follow.
(I was gifted an advanced physical and audio copy from the publisher and would recommend both! Thank you, Random House!)
A very solid follow-up to Detransition, Baby!
Stag Dance is a novel, cocooned by a series of short stories. The short stories were exceptional. Sharp explorations of gender, sexuality, and personal identity. I couldn’t pick a favorite if I tried—all left me unsettled, reeling or both.
The titular novel, Stag Dance, I had to skip through. It unfortunately did not work for me.
Regardless, this collection solidified for me that Torrey Peters is an author to follow.
(I was gifted an advanced physical and audio copy from the publisher and would recommend both! Thank you, Random House!)
March 29, 2025
3.75 stars
February 20, 2025
Funny, intense, and excellent
March 29, 2025
Can’t wait to discuss this at book club!
March 9, 2025
4.5 stars
I think one of the beautiful things about Torrey Peters’ writing is that she puts her characters into these sort of strange or unusual situations (I mean what would you do if you were patient zero for a virus that removes people’s ability to produce sex hormones?) and then just mines that in a sort of character study with a significant focus on gender and gender identity. I found this with Detransition, Baby, and thought she managed it even better in the stories that make up this collection. Stag Dance also feels like you’re really watching Peters flex her writing muscles. The stories range from a dystopian sci-fi, to contemporary literary fiction that almost reads as horror at times, to historical fiction, and she manages to pull off each of these seamlessly while still making sure it feels like a cohesive collection exploring gender and identity and self-discovery. Each character feels distinct from each other across the stories, which isn’t something I always find in short story/novella collections, and the way their internal conflicts are explored are so interesting and compelling (it’s been over a week since I finished this and I’m still thinking about The Chaser and Stag Dance in particular). Bottom line: I really liked Detransition, Baby, I loved this, and I can’t wait to see what Torrey peters writes next.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-arc!
I think one of the beautiful things about Torrey Peters’ writing is that she puts her characters into these sort of strange or unusual situations (I mean what would you do if you were patient zero for a virus that removes people’s ability to produce sex hormones?) and then just mines that in a sort of character study with a significant focus on gender and gender identity. I found this with Detransition, Baby, and thought she managed it even better in the stories that make up this collection. Stag Dance also feels like you’re really watching Peters flex her writing muscles. The stories range from a dystopian sci-fi, to contemporary literary fiction that almost reads as horror at times, to historical fiction, and she manages to pull off each of these seamlessly while still making sure it feels like a cohesive collection exploring gender and identity and self-discovery. Each character feels distinct from each other across the stories, which isn’t something I always find in short story/novella collections, and the way their internal conflicts are explored are so interesting and compelling (it’s been over a week since I finished this and I’m still thinking about The Chaser and Stag Dance in particular). Bottom line: I really liked Detransition, Baby, I loved this, and I can’t wait to see what Torrey peters writes next.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-arc!
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March 14, 2025marketing for this was kinda deceptive — its reprints of two old stories + a novella and new story. so as a collection its all over the place. her concerns have barely evolved past this line from 'the masker' (2016): "the disturbing knowledge that comes from distinguishing in others the parts of yourself that you most hate." OK girl. anything else? the tedious novella 'stag dance' is not funny and technically sloppy, burying moments of inspiration under flat farce and an affected "old-timey" voice: strained, put-on prose that in her vulture mag review grace byron claims, outrageously, is "smooth like slate". WHAT!!! juicing this because it's from a time "before pronouns" kinda points out that mainstream trans lit has to date come from/focused on a tiny handful of modern perspectives 😖
in the plus column: the cover is nice.
in the plus column: the cover is nice.
April 1, 2025
Welcome Torrey Peters's sophomore work, including three short stories and sharing a title with its main novella, written over the course of 10 years to explore "the inconvenient aspects" of Peters's never-ending transition that lack the language to address them. This is a cross-genre exploration of gender, dabbling in speculative fiction, horror, and western to unpack ideas like sexuality, fetish, community, and pre-transition relationships.
This was a very unique read and I loved exploring across so many different styles of storytelling in this one work. Each story had a different tone, a different environment, and a different purpose. I'm unable to say which story was my favorite or least favorite, each was very different and has a completely different emotional impact on the reader. While each characters' motivations are quite clear and fleshed out, I found their personalities as individuals a little weak. The abrupt ending of each story also dulled the emotional impact a touch.
Unfortunately, there are some moments in here regarding violence against women as a gender-confirming and feminizing phenomenon that just made my stomach sink. I don't seek to invalidate this idea among trans women or claim that I completely understand the factors behind this feeling, but I found it a harmful viewpoint at the very least and it definitely soured this work a bit for me. I greatly appreciate what Peters achieves in this work, and she is certainly an excellent writer, skilled at creating characters and scenarios that are unique in their own ways while exploring issues that face trans and queer communities at large. Overall, I found this work effective if maybe a little weak at points, perhaps not the right book for me, but certainly for others who may see more of themselves in these stories.
~Thank you Random House for providing this ARC!~
This was a very unique read and I loved exploring across so many different styles of storytelling in this one work. Each story had a different tone, a different environment, and a different purpose. I'm unable to say which story was my favorite or least favorite, each was very different and has a completely different emotional impact on the reader. While each characters' motivations are quite clear and fleshed out, I found their personalities as individuals a little weak. The abrupt ending of each story also dulled the emotional impact a touch.
Unfortunately, there are some moments in here regarding violence against women as a gender-confirming and feminizing phenomenon that just made my stomach sink. I don't seek to invalidate this idea among trans women or claim that I completely understand the factors behind this feeling, but I found it a harmful viewpoint at the very least and it definitely soured this work a bit for me. I greatly appreciate what Peters achieves in this work, and she is certainly an excellent writer, skilled at creating characters and scenarios that are unique in their own ways while exploring issues that face trans and queer communities at large. Overall, I found this work effective if maybe a little weak at points, perhaps not the right book for me, but certainly for others who may see more of themselves in these stories.
~Thank you Random House for providing this ARC!~
August 29, 2024
everything should be a novel and stories!! what a treat!!
In her acknowledgments, Torrey Peters shares that these stories were written over the course of ten years, exploring the complication and confusing aspects of transitioning that aren't often talked about. She explores uncomfortable conversations and deeply personal questions, and her use of speculative/horror writing to do so was so strong.
as always with short story collections, some stories were stronger than others for me. "the masker" was my favorite by far, but I truly enjoyed all of them. I need to stop procrastinating on "detransition baby" fr
In her acknowledgments, Torrey Peters shares that these stories were written over the course of ten years, exploring the complication and confusing aspects of transitioning that aren't often talked about. She explores uncomfortable conversations and deeply personal questions, and her use of speculative/horror writing to do so was so strong.
as always with short story collections, some stories were stronger than others for me. "the masker" was my favorite by far, but I truly enjoyed all of them. I need to stop procrastinating on "detransition baby" fr
April 5, 2025
i read detransition, baby last year around april/may and now reading this in march/april i’m getting deja vu like wow that feeling when you read a really really good book…… torrey peters is genuinely the most refreshing contemporary writer i’ve encountered so far like i truly don’t think anyone is doing it like her. not only is her prose just amazing and breathtaking, she’s also laugh out loud while reading on the train funny while also being totally unafraid to challenge conventions. i think the chaser was my favorite in this collection but also rip jonathan swift you would have loved infect your friends and loved ones
November 16, 2024
Stag Dance is fabulous. I have no words. My heart broke and burst all within these four stories.
March 2, 2025
Average story rating: 4.4 ☆
In the acknowledgements of her first short story/novella collection, Torrey Peters mentions that the pieces contained within Stag Dance have been written over a nearly 10-year period, an accumulation of her efforts to explore aspects of her own transition that were difficult to articulate or existed beyond the boundaries of publicly sanitized trans discourse. This desire to explore what it can, but not always does, mean to live as a trans woman are apparent throughout these stories—the vulnerable and infrequently seen underbelly of transition and metamorphosis are on full display, probed and turned over with prose that is as sharp as it is tender.
Stag Dance is a collection of three short stories and one novella (the titular Stag Dance). Each explores in its own way some particular facet of trans womanhood, all feeling distinctly fresh and unlike anything else in the collection. These stories are unusual, with a certain visceral grittiness to them—grime, mud, blood, and a general sense of unease provide an atmospheric backdrop for most of these pieces. But they’re also each infused with beauty and little moments of tenderness, both in Peters’s excellent prose and in the quiet and gentle moments that she carefully constructs around her characters.
I loved Detransition, Baby, and I loved Stag Dance, too. This short story collection is an excellent opportunity to see Peters’s range and wit as an author, as she dips into literary subgenres including speculative fiction and psychological horror. I really cannot recommend this highly enough, and can’t wait to see where she takes us next.
Thank you to the publisher for an e-ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.
In the acknowledgements of her first short story/novella collection, Torrey Peters mentions that the pieces contained within Stag Dance have been written over a nearly 10-year period, an accumulation of her efforts to explore aspects of her own transition that were difficult to articulate or existed beyond the boundaries of publicly sanitized trans discourse. This desire to explore what it can, but not always does, mean to live as a trans woman are apparent throughout these stories—the vulnerable and infrequently seen underbelly of transition and metamorphosis are on full display, probed and turned over with prose that is as sharp as it is tender.
Stag Dance is a collection of three short stories and one novella (the titular Stag Dance). Each explores in its own way some particular facet of trans womanhood, all feeling distinctly fresh and unlike anything else in the collection. These stories are unusual, with a certain visceral grittiness to them—grime, mud, blood, and a general sense of unease provide an atmospheric backdrop for most of these pieces. But they’re also each infused with beauty and little moments of tenderness, both in Peters’s excellent prose and in the quiet and gentle moments that she carefully constructs around her characters.
I loved Detransition, Baby, and I loved Stag Dance, too. This short story collection is an excellent opportunity to see Peters’s range and wit as an author, as she dips into literary subgenres including speculative fiction and psychological horror. I really cannot recommend this highly enough, and can’t wait to see where she takes us next.
Thank you to the publisher for an e-ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.
September 28, 2024
This is some REAL GOOD SHIT RIGHT HERE.
I just love Torrey Peters and the meticulous intensity of her writing, her characterization, and how well rendered and natural and believable every detail she chooses is. I love the queer revelry and intellectualism and varying styles and voices across these stories, which still feel cohesive as part of a collection. My absolute favorite was the novella, titled Stag Dance, which takes place in an illegal winter lumber camp and reads so damn smoothly… so rhythmic and folksy and gay…
Loved it, will read again soon
I just love Torrey Peters and the meticulous intensity of her writing, her characterization, and how well rendered and natural and believable every detail she chooses is. I love the queer revelry and intellectualism and varying styles and voices across these stories, which still feel cohesive as part of a collection. My absolute favorite was the novella, titled Stag Dance, which takes place in an illegal winter lumber camp and reads so damn smoothly… so rhythmic and folksy and gay…
Loved it, will read again soon
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