Torrey Peters: Detransition, Baby

Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, and a job she didn’t hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with a married man. Ames isn’t happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese – and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames’s boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that that she’s pregnant with his baby – and that she’s not sure if she wants to keep it – Ames wonders if this is the chance he’s been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family – and raise the baby together? This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can’t reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us thrillingly, original, witty, and deeply moving novel. This book, too, is one of the many elements of the queer library we aspire to create. Authors from all over the world are speaking with a very clear voice: love is love. At American Corner Gdansk, we want to celebrate it no matter what.