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Learn moreStag Dance
A Novel & Stories
Length
9 hours 6 minutes
Language
English
Narrators
Lee Osorio, Briggon Snow, Eileen Noonan & Pyrrha Nicole
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreBookseller recommendation
“Oof. A book hasn't left me this speechless in a while. Torrey Peters (Author of Detransition, Baby) has a way of conveying stories with such authentic vulnerability. This one, a collection of short stories (that I wish were longer) and one novella explores themes of gender, identity, sexuality, and the trans experience. Drenched in beauty, honesty, shame. Sometimes brutality so. But Torrey Peters wastes no words, and no violence. Everything with great purpose, reason, and symbolism. Incredibly thought provoking. I'd read (or in this case, listen) to anything she writes!”
— Ryann • The Buzzed Word
Bookseller recommendation
“Torrey Peters succeeded in giving depth and emotion to every single one of her characters, adding a touch a eroticism and humor to each stories and I loved every minute of it. Stag Dance really was incredible from start to finish, heartwrenching and kind, and if I had to chose, this one will be my favorite. ”
— Camille • Nouvelle Librairie Internationale V.O
Bookseller recommendation
“Filled to the brim with visceral and liberatory queer writing. I found two of these stories years ago and they molded me into the reader I am today. To say I’m over the moon that people will finally read these stories is an understatement. Flawless!”
— Grace Sullivan • Fountain Bookstore
Bookseller recommendation
“Erotic and quietly touching, instinctive and temperamental, this novella and added short stories delight as much as they disturb. Lumberjack jamborees, dehumanizing skin suits, the shrieks of baby pigs, and a world wracked by a hormone famine come together to make an unsettling experience highlighting the complexities of the queer/femme experience. ”
— Lambie • Underground Books
Bookseller recommendation
“One of the stories in Stag Dance: Red dead redemption but ~queer~”
— Mariela • ILYSM Books
Bookseller recommendation
“This book is highly anticipated - Peters’ multifaceted exploration of community is an exciting listen.”
— Christopher • Cousins' Books
Bookseller recommendation
“The audiobook calls us to a whole other world of this novel and stories. I was THROWN OFF MY AXIS by not only how good the stories and Peters’ writing is, but also by the voices of this world brought to life by the audio actors! It’s obvious this book was a labor of love at every level of its journey, and I’ll gush a bit more, because it’s rare to find a book that is as thoroughly scintillating as Stag Dance!”
— Federico • Secret Garden Bookshop
Summary
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 • A VULTURE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (SO FAR)
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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Audiobook details
Author:
Torrey Peters
Narrators:
Lee Osorio, Briggon Snow, Eileen Noonan & Pyrrha Nicole
ISBN:
9780593912652
Length:
9 hours 6 minutes
Language:
English
Publisher:
Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Publication date:
March 11, 2025
Edition:
Unabridged
Libro.fm rank:
#242 Overall
Genre rank:
#1 in Short Stories
Reviews
“A great Torrey Peters story feels like punching yourself in the face, laughing at the bleeding bitch in the mirror and then shamefacedly realizing you’re aroused by the blood on your lips. The four pieces in Stag Dance will leave you bruised, broken and wanting more.”—The New York Times“Torrey Peters moves nimbly between scenes of a hormone-affecting pandemic and a logging camp plagued by a mysterious beast, with vivid characters ever exploring gender and connection.”—Vanity Fair
“From one of the boldest, most innovative voices in fiction today. . . [What unites this collection] is Torrey Peters’ masterful and unflinching depiction of desire.”—Bustle
“Sincere and mind-bending . . . [Stag Dance] is more exciting than anything else around.”—New York
“[Stag Dance perfectly showcases Peters’s] acid wit, incredible talent, and eye for possibility.”—Chicago Review of Books
“A collection that pulses with fever-dream intensity. . . . Dreamlike and unsettling, knife-edged and macabrely witty, Stag Dance demands to be discussed.”—Womendotcom
“Stag Dance is funny, brilliant, and effortlessly original.”—Vulture
“You never knew you needed a short story collection that includes lonely lumberjacks exploring queerness and gender, but you do. The Detransition, Baby author returns with a diverse collection that’s as fun as it is serious.”—USA Today
“Stag Dance further establishes [Peters] as an essential voice in queer literature.”—AV Club
“Inventive, boundary-pushing . . . [Stag Dance takes] on gender, transness and lives on the margins in all of their gorgeously complicated glory.”—People
“Innovative, insightful, funny, and confronting.”—The Independent
“A spellbinding collection of genre-blurring novellas, set in worlds familiar and far-flung . . . With pathos and wit, Torrey Peters explores characters who find themselves on the brink of self-discovery while also grappling with the challenge and promise of community. I loved this book.”—Brit Bennett, New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Half
“The stories in Stag Dance are potent and surprising and take no prisoners. How exquisitely Peters writes about the way we move toward ourselves—with the clarity of desire and the agony of resistance.”—Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House
“This is what I want from fiction. It starts at a place of real vulnerability, goes all the way down its own rabbit hole, and ends up potent and strange.”—Imogen Binnie, author of Nevada
“Peters is a holy, dreadful storyteller, her words divine and her characters brutally real, her talent awe-inspiring, her vision immense. Her writing tears your guts out. It leaves you gasping. This is fiction that makes you drop to your knees—fiction at its very best.”—Julia Phillips, bestselling author of Bear
“Brilliant, mind-blowing . . . Peters’ vision is one where gender roles are never stagnant, and the world is made new by queerness.”—BookPage
“Electrifying.”—Publishers Weekly, starred revie Expand reviews
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