NATIONAL BESTSELLER - "An unforgettable portrait of three
women, trans and cis, who wrestle with questions of motherhood and
family making . . . Detransition, Baby might destroy your book
club, but in a good way."--Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes
the Form of a Mortal Girl
"A tale of
love, loss, and self-discovery as singular as it is universal, and
all the sweeter for it."--Entertainment Weekly
Longlisted for
The Women's Prize - Roxane Gay's Audacious Book Club Pick - A Marie
Claire Book Club Pick - New York Times Editors' Choice
Reese almost had it
all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, 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 married men.
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 she's pregnant with his baby--and that she's
not sure whether 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 a
thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.