Everything you’ve heard about Stag Dance by Torrey Peters is right—she’s collected a kaleidoscope of stories of trans life and they couldn’t be more different. This 2025 collection, with one novel and three novellas, is a masterclass in tight, vibrant storytelling that hits every note. Peters is a powerhouse who delivers tales that are funny, raw, and unflinching.
The title novel, Stag Dance, is a wild standout—a coming-out story wrapped in a tall tale about lumberjacks throwing a winter dance where some dress as women. The voice of the narrator, Babe Bunyan, a hulking axeman with a heart full of longing, is something straight out of Letterkenny with his gruff slang and raw honesty. His rivalry with pretty young Lisen builds to a surreal spectacle of gender and desire.
The three novellas are just as good. Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones is a dystopian mind-bender where a trans woman’s drug shuts off sex hormones, forcing everyone on the planet to choose their gender. It’s a wild ride with love/hate relationship at its core that’s pure chaos. The Chaser dives into a Quaker boarding school’s forbidden romance, moody Holdovers vibes and cruel intrigue, like a queer Dead Poets Society. The Masker is gritty and bold, following Krys at a Las Vegas transfemme gathering, torn between a sleazy mystery man and a jaded trans sister.
Peters’ prose is sharp and witty, never wasting a word. She’s incredibly versatile — each story shifts genres (sci-fi, romance, horror, western-ish) but stays grounded and feels real. Every tale wrestles with identity, community, and desire in ways that feel alive. I found it a quick and enjoyable read, though the narrator’s voice in the title story took a while to get used to. I read a chunk of it aloud at the beginning to find the cadence, which was helpful.
The NYT review says it in a way that’d never occur to me but I nodded at:
“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.”
Stag Dance is a triumph—four stories that provoke, unsettle and frequently made me laugh out loud. Believe the hype, this is one of the best of the year.
