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(Inevitably, the TV rights were snapped up within months.)
Photo: Hunter Abrams
For her sophomore book,Stag Dance, published this week, Peters has taken a bold pivot.
All of which is to say thatStag Danceis unlike anything else youll read this year.
How does it feel different this time?
Torrey Peters:Im excited, but it feels like a totally different thing.
So it felt like there was a lot of pressure, even sometimes tacitly, to represent.
And if youve readDetransition, Baby,youll know its a very particular story.
I was never like, This is the universal trans story.
Were not all trying to have a baby with our boss.
And I really chafed at the idea that I had to represent all other trans women.
That also feels good because this book is very much my particular weird shit that I love.
But at the same time, obviously, the political climate sucks.
Youre publishing this as a novel and three storieshow did you arrive at that format?
And how did you find the right sequencing for them?
I think that the customary or obvious way to do it is to put Stag Dance last.
But I think Stag Dance really questions transition, and the idea of transition.
What constitutes a transition?
Who gets to transition?
And the fact that transition isnt fair.
Some people have an easy time transitioning, some people have a hard time transitioning.
One character has a hard time.
Another, its almost like he cantnottransition.
And sometimes transition doesnt work for people.
Thats not really the party line, I think.
Thats not an argument that I necessarily think I want to end the book on.
I didnt want to end the book basically being like,transitions hard.
I think that especially as trans stuff has gotten more loaded, people already have their opinions.
And then they go, Why did I feel that emotion?
And they intellectualize why they felt that way.
There are only four characters in the entire book that identify as trans.
Everybody else just has weird feelings about gender.
I think its really easy to say trans people are alien in some way.
Hes afraid of the way that theyre going to judge him.
He wants to be seen a certain way and hes locked into it because of fear.
These feelings are the same feelings that a trans person goes through.
Is that empathy something youre also subtly trying to encourage the reader to practice?
I mean, I dont relate to characters who are perfect.
They all have their aspirations.
Lexi has almost utopian ideals of what shes trying to do.
Our personalities, our own problems, often get in the way of what we want.
I love my friends.
I think theyre wonderful people, but Im still constantly baffled by the choices that they make.
Im sure theyre baffled by the choices I make.
Thats why I love people.
Because Im like, Why did you do that?
People seemed to be slightly taken aback by that.
Is that something you’ve observed too?
Is it something you feel the need to push back against still?
Well, I think this is something that I can only really do in fiction.
I think that fiction is a special place for that.
But I think that fiction is a special space where people get to take that risk.
I thought a lot about writers who came before me, who are not necessarily trans.
And he writes this character who basically spends the entire time fantasizing and masturbating.
And the Jewish community was outraged.
But now its like a classic, right?
How can you say that blue eyes equal beauty?
And you realize essentially the context of those stories is what warps the characters.
Its a context of American racism.
Why are they so fragile?
Why are they making such unreasonable choices?
you could say, Well, theyre just unhinged people.
Pretending that theyre going to be heroes in a context of transphobia, is actually…
If theres a context of transphobia, I dont want people to tell me to be a hero.
I want people to be like, Yeah, I guess you may have acted out.
Of course you did.
That to me feels much more liberatory than having to be perfect.
Is that something that you are okay with the reader doing?
Would you rather they didnt probe too deeply?
These days, I dont care.
I really didnt want people to think that.
And now Im like, I dont care.
And Ive acted badly out of resentment and jealousy.
Equally, I mightve had people be jealous of me and be like, Get over yourselves.
I wanted to ask you about the vernacular you use in Stag Dancewhere did that come from?
It feels like it could have gone so wrong, but you pulled it off brilliantly.
How long did that take to fine-tune and get right?
A lot of the specific argot I found in a dictionary of lumber slang from 1941.
I would say that about 80% of those words are real lumberjack slang.
And then at some point I was like, Actually, its not fun to be historically accurate.
Why am I a fiction writer if Im just going to be historically accurate?
Most of the really fun books that are doing various dialects are also inventing things themselvestheyre not pure pastiche.
And so it took me a while to get that, but also, how can younotenjoy it?
If I say the word dysphoria, that word isdead.
Its just totally…clunk.
Are you looking forward to having those conversations with your readers out in the world?
Its a little bit tiring to constantly be like, Where am I and who am I talking to?
How can I be most effective in these places?
But at the same time, I am really grateful.
Suddenly I get to go to New Zealand, I get to go to Australia.
Honestly, its crazy.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
