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nolemdaer 's review for:
Stag Dance
by Torrey Peters
challenging
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Edit: had to come back and knock a .25 off for the pig because "gratuitous animal suffering as symbol for human cruelty/weakness" is gauche writing
"Torrey Peters is an incredible writer" I said six million times while reading each story. I have a feeling a lot of reviews will call this "visceral," by which they probably mean there's some actually horrific animal violence on page (not quite cruelty but wow massive content warning for The Chaser) and a kind of cutting desperate viciousness that can only come from community. The first three stories (short story Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones, short story The Chaser, and titular novella Stag Dance) stood out to me; Peters's grasp of short story pacing and arc resolution felt very strong in each. The Chaser was probably the most standout - repression, unresolved yearning not particularly for a romantic/sexual partner but for a sense of commonality, claustrophobia, small social violences. And a pig that has a really really bad day please beware. Other reviews criticize Stag Dance's pace and jargon, and personally I feel like sometimes an author clearly does a lot of research on a niche setting and time period and you may as well buckle in for the ride. I think the emotional power of its buildup and payoff was strong enough to move me; the ending was fantastic. The Masker was the weakest of the bunch for me. The exploration of the borderlands between sexuality/fetish (i.e. cross-dressing)/gender was very compelling, but as someone who feels zero percent compelled by weird and annoying men, it was very hard to grasp the pathos of the main character's struggle. Was feeling a 4.5 throughout Stag Dance but knocked a .25 for Masker not quite reaching the heights of the previous. I was duly impressed with Peters.
"Torrey Peters is an incredible writer" I said six million times while reading each story. I have a feeling a lot of reviews will call this "visceral," by which they probably mean there's some actually horrific animal violence on page (not quite cruelty but wow massive content warning for The Chaser) and a kind of cutting desperate viciousness that can only come from community. The first three stories (short story Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones, short story The Chaser, and titular novella Stag Dance) stood out to me; Peters's grasp of short story pacing and arc resolution felt very strong in each. The Chaser was probably the most standout - repression, unresolved yearning not particularly for a romantic/sexual partner but for a sense of commonality, claustrophobia, small social violences. And a pig that has a really really bad day please beware. Other reviews criticize Stag Dance's pace and jargon, and personally I feel like sometimes an author clearly does a lot of research on a niche setting and time period and you may as well buckle in for the ride. I think the emotional power of its buildup and payoff was strong enough to move me; the ending was fantastic. The Masker was the weakest of the bunch for me. The exploration of the borderlands between sexuality/fetish (i.e. cross-dressing)/gender was very compelling, but as someone who feels zero percent compelled by weird and annoying men, it was very hard to grasp the pathos of the main character's struggle. Was feeling a 4.5 throughout Stag Dance but knocked a .25 for Masker not quite reaching the heights of the previous. I was duly impressed with Peters.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death