Stag Dance
A Quartet
Published on 10. March 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-0-593-44635-5 (ISBN)
Description
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “This inventive, boundary-pushing follow-up to Detransition, Baby . . . [takes] on gender, transness and lives on the margins in all of their gorgeously complicated glory.”—People
“Hot, heartbreaking, and thrillingly victorious.”—Miranda July, New York Times bestselling author of All Fours
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • LONGLISTED FOR THE STORY PRIZE • ONE OF VULTURE'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, Elle, Electric Lit, them, Chicago Public Library
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.
“Hot, heartbreaking, and thrillingly victorious.”—Miranda July, New York Times bestselling author of All Fours
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • LONGLISTED FOR THE STORY PRIZE • ONE OF VULTURE'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, Elle, Electric Lit, them, Chicago Public Library
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.
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Torrey Peters is the bestselling author of the novel Detransition, Baby, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and was named one of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, a finalist for the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize, and 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. Peters rides a pink motorcycle and splits her time between Brooklyn and an off-grid cabin in Vermont.