SHORT STORIES

Stag Dance: A Novel and Stories

Random. Mar. 2025. 304p. ISBN 9780593595640. $28. F
COPY ISBN
Award-winning Peters’s latest book is a daring collection of four short pieces that resist easy categorization. The opening story, “Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones,” is a dystopian fantasy in which a vengeful trans woman has brought on a gender apocalypse through a hormonal pandemic, while the last tale, “The Masker,” is an erotic horror set in Las Vegas. In “The Chaser,” the book’s most affecting piece, an illicit affair between roommates at a Quaker boarding school leads to brutal consequences. Finally, the title piece, the longest and most esoteric of the collection, is a gloriously demented fable starring bandit lumberjacks who are invited to attend a dance as women, hoping to be courted by their fellow loggers. The implications are more challenging to unpack in this work than in Peters’s previous novel, Detransition, Baby, but this collection hums with the same level of blazing insight and proves that she is an author of ferocious talent and range.
VERDICT A provocative and recommended addition to collections.
Comment Policy:
  • Be respectful, and do not attack the author, people mentioned in the article, or other commenters. Take on the idea, not the messenger.
  • Don't use obscene, profane, or vulgar language.
  • Stay on point. Comments that stray from the topic at hand may be deleted.
  • Comments may be republished in print, online, or other forms of media.
  • If you see something objectionable, please let us know. Once a comment has been flagged, a staff member will investigate.


RELATED 

ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER?

We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing

ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER?