''Stag Dance'' is a 2025 book by the American writer

Torrey Peters Torrey Peters (born July 1981) is an American author. Her debut novel, '' Detransition, Baby'', has received mainstream and critical success. The novel was nominated for the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction and won the 2022 PEN/Hemingway Award. ...

, consisting of three short stories and the titular novel. It was published by

Penguin Random House Penguin Random House Limited is a British-American multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, with the merger of Penguin Books and Random House. Penguin Books was or ...

Plot

"Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones"

In an apocalyptic near-future

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

, a

pandemic A pandemic ( ) is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has a sudden increase in cases and spreads across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Widespread endemic (epi ...

renders humans unable to produce

sex hormones Sex hormones, also known as sex steroids, gonadocorticoids and gonadal steroids, are steroid hormones that interact with vertebrate steroid hormone receptors. The sex hormones include the androgens, estrogens, and progestogens. Their effects a ...

"The Chaser"

A boy questions his sexuality as he embarks on an ill-fated relationship with his femme

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. They have existed for many centuries, and now extend acr ...

roommate.

"The Masker"

While attending a Las Vegas

transfeminine A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes persons whose gende ...

gathering, Krys is forced to confront her own identity when others at the event turn on a guest wearing a full body silicone woman suit.

''Stag Dance''

Babe Bunyan, a large, unattractive

lumberjack Lumberjack is a mostly North American term for workers in the logging industry who perform the initial harvesting and transport of trees. The term usually refers to loggers in the era before 1945 in the United States, when trees were felled us ...

, decides to attend his winter camp's

stag dance ''Stag Dance'' is a 2025 book by the American writer Torrey Peters, consisting of three short stories and the titular novel. It was published by Penguin Random House. Plot "Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones" In an apocalypse, apocalyptic near-fu ...

as a woman, placing him in a rivalry with the younger, more feminine Lisen.

Reception

In his review for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', writer Hugh Ryan praised ''Stag Dance'', praising Peters's skill at "plumbing the murky hearts of queer people". In ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'', Ilana Masad also commended the book, arguing "Peters’s book is important, but putting aside for a moment the weight of that unasked-for responsibility, Stag Dance is a marvelous follow-up to a tremendous debut". Writer

Lauren J Joseph Lauren is mostly a feminine given name. The name's meaning may be "laurel tree", "sweet of honor", or "wisdom". It is derived from the French name Laurence, a feminine version of Laurent, which is in turn derived from the Roman surname Laurentius ...

praised the book in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', noting its ability to maintain cohesion across diverse stories, and comparing it to

Mariana Enríquez Mariana Enríquez (born 1973) is an Argentine journalist, novelist, and short story writer. She is a part of the group of writers known as "new Argentine narrative". Her short stories fall within the horror and gothic genres and have been publis ...

's short story collection '' Things We Lost in the Fire''. ''Kirkus Reviews'' was more mixed on the book, writing that the titular story "feels interminable at novel length", before ultimately concluding that "even when Peters’ experiments don't pay off, it's exciting to read an author willing to take these risks".

References

{{authority control 2025 LGBTQ-related literary works Transgender literature 2025 short story collections Penguin Random House books Novels set in Seattle Novels set in Las Vegas 2025 American novels American LGBTQ novels