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Detransition, Baby: A Novel

Torrey Peters

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER

The lives of three women—transgender and cisgender—collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires in “one of the most celebrated novels of the year” (Time).

“Reading this novel is like holding a live wire in your hand.”—Vulture.

Named one of the Best Books of the Year by more than twenty publications, including The New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Time, Vogue, Esquire, Vulture, and Autostraddle.

PEN/Hemingway Award Winner • Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Gotham Book Prize • Longlisted for The Women’s Prize • Roxane Gay’s Audacious 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.

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Sapph-Lit\ \ Nina\ \ • May 5

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Today, Sapph-Lit’s first book release as a Bindery imprint is published. \ \ Saturn Returning by Kim Narby is officially out in the world for everyone to read. I hope this story makes you laugh, cry, get annoyed as all hell, scream, throw your book across the room only to immediately pick it back up and keep reading because you need to know what happens next, giggle and kick your feet, recommend the book to a friend, lend your annotated copy out. Silvia, Trace and Jordan are the most complicated, messy, real characters I’ve read in a long while. They may be fictional, but I know these lesbians — I’ve met them at bars and parties, on Hinge and Feeld, in college and at work. Thank you to Kim for bringing them to life and trusting me to share them with the world.\ \ When Kim signed a finished copy of SR for me yesterday at her launch party, she signed it: “Here is to sapphic literature. Here is to messy girls. The mess only makes us stronger.” I couldn’t agree more.\ \ As the founder of Sapph-Lit, all I’ve ever wanted to do for the last 5 years is be a bridge. By that, I mean Sapph-Lit was never about me. I am not Sapph-Lit. You, dear reader, are. For the past 5 years I’ve been lucky enough to connect readers to books that make them feel less alone. Connecting them with each other in the hopes that they make lifelong friends. Almost every single time I go to an event, I meet folks who say they met through Sapph-Lit. Sometimes they joined in the last year. Sometimes they remember our days on Geneva and our first ever official meetup in Central Park September 2021, just a few short months after we read One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston as our inaugural book pick. \ \ So much has happened to me, to Sapph-Lit, in 5 years time — I cannot deny that at times it has been a little messy (I wouldn’t be me without a little bit of mess, just like our 3 girls in Saturn Returning) — but that purpose of our community has never changed. I am still a very happy, sometimes very tired and overwhelmed but nevertheless incredibly proud, bridge.\ \ One of the ways Sapph-Lit has evolved is now I get to connect Sapph-Lit authors with an audience before their book is even ready to be published. When I first read Saturn Returning, it was because you all told me to. Our Bindery subscribers read a sentence of Kim’s pitch letter and said, in an overwhelming majority, “Nina needs to read that one first.” You all understood Kim and our three characters before I did. I read all 259 pages of the original manuscript in one sitting, and this is the email I immediately upon finishing sent Shira, our acquisitions director here at Bindery, at 8:52pm on December 6th, 2024.\ \ SATURN RETURNING by Kim Narby is 1000% my first book. It's exactly what I love in a sapphic read -- the messiness of DYKETTE, the earnestness of OLD ENOUGH, the complex yet breezy conversations about sexuality of DETRANSITION, BABY. I would love to make this work. Fingers crossed it does because it's so special.\ \ And from then till now, Bindery Babes were there every step of the way: through rounds and rounds edits, having a say in the cover design, meeting Kim for the first time on Zoom, being the first to receive ARCs, pre-orders, BookCon and events galore, and now PUB DAY. Here’s to Saturn Returning, to Kim, to all you Sapph-Litties around the world, and to hopefully many more books to come (here's looking at you, Creative Differences).\ \ Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for it all.\ \ xx Nina

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messy queer fiction, anyone? 🪐 SATURN RETURNING is for fans of: 👀✨

post inspired by the incredible @susanjmorris & @theinkyphoenix 🖤

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Sapph-Lit\ \ Nina\ \ • Jun 6 2023

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Sapph-Lit in Conversation with Torrey Peters

Torrey Peters spoke with our founder Nina Haines all about her debut novel DETRANSITION, BABY, published October 2021 with One World.

Buy Detransition, Baby: https://bookshop.org/a/23287/9780593133385

Join Sapph-Lit: https://links.geneva.com/invite/dfc1d4dd-81ee-4e3b-b817-1eaf66974427

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