Stag Dance: A Quartet

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • A VULTURE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (SO FAR) • "The four pieces in Stag Dance will leave you bruised, broken and wanting more."—The New York Times "Hot, heartbreaking, and thrillingly victorious."—Miranda July, New York Times bestselling author of All Fours In this quartet of stories, Torrey Peters’s keen eye for the rough edges of community and desire push the limits of trans writing. In Stag Dance, the titular novella, 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 "is more exciting than anything else around." (New York)