Detransition, Baby: A Novel

"Torrey Peter’s Detransition, Baby starts from a provocative premise – a co-parenting triangle formed by a trans woman, a former trans woman (now detransitioned and living again as a man), and his new girlfriend who has fallen unexpectedly pregnant. It tackles big issues (gender dysphoria, the challenges of living as a trans woman, non-traditional family units) with wit and flair; think Fleishmann is in Trouble , if Fleishmann is in Trouble were set in the New York LGBTQ community. Serpent’s Tail, the British publisher, has published a brief extract online which will give you a sense of the voice, in case you want to try before you buy. Sarah Moss’s Summerwater finally reaches the US on 12 January; released in the UK last year to thunderous acclaim, this small but perfectly formed novel comprises twelve monologues voiced by guests at a remote holiday park on a Scottish lochside, whose stories come together and apart – as, all the while, rain hammers at the window and the tension mounts. I was particularly excited to receive an early proof of Olivia Sudjic’s second novel, Asylum Road (21 January in the UK, no US release date yet), which I gobbled up in record time. In it, Anya, a woman who fled the war-torn Balkans as a child, returns to visit her Bosnian parents for the first time in years, with her very English fiancé in tow. It’s an impressive novel; Sudjic’s cool affect and sense of detachment provides cover for a growing sense of urgency and alienation. I’m not sure if I’d describe it as a fragmentary novel, exactly, but it’s certainly fractured – personally I love it, although I know this style can be polarising. (I also recommend Sudjic’s 2017 debut, Sympathy , an ultra-online story of digital stalking and sexual obsession.) And if that sounds interesting to you, I suspect you will also be excited to hear that Max Porter, author of the thrilling, shape-shifting novellas Grief is the Thing With Feathers and Lanny , will release a new book – The Death of Francis Bacon – on January 7. Again, I don’t see a US release date listed yet, but Americans should keep their eyes peeled. It’s described variously as a novel and a sequence of seven “written pictures,” its an ambitious attempt to get into the mind of the late, great artist. Fans of experimental fiction should also look out for Rebecca Watson’s little scratch , a formally inventive work of stream-of-consciousness that has had met with a rapturous critical reception, and is out on 14 January. Its words often scattered across the page, or unfolding in parallel columns, it has an enthralling, slightly breathless quality and perfectly recreates the flickering of thoughts through the anxious mind. Get a sense of Watson’s style by reading the award-winning short story that spawned the novel in The White Review ."

"It follows a trans woman called Reese who is a Brooklyn 30-something. It’s a sort of trans Fleabag , I think, because she’s in a series of inappropriate relationships with men who are just awful and unavailable to commit to her. But she really craves that settled domesticity, that quote-unquote ‘normal’ family life that is starting to become available to queer people. I’ve heard Torrey talk about the evolution of ‘queer possibility’, which is similar to what I was talking about earlier, for myself and my generation of lesbians—how we feel we’ve just missed out on motherhood. There’s probably a similar generation of trans women, slightly behind us, who feel that it’s not quite acceptable yet for trans women to become mothers. People can’t talk about it comfortably yet. So it’s very interesting to read a book where you have a trans woman who really, really craves this. Her detransitioned ex, Ames, comes to her with an unusual proposition. Ames now identifies as male, having formerly identified as female but having decided that living as a trans women is too difficult and challenging. Which I think is an interesting point in itself. The anti-trans lobby would perhaps use the fact that some trans women detransition as evidence that they weren’t ever really women. Whereas, actually, the point I think Torrey is making is that it’s just so difficult to live as the gender you feel you really are, because there’s so much violence and prejudice and horrible stuff directed at you. “Trans awareness and acceptance is two or three decades behind the acceptance of gay people” So Ames is no longer Amy, but has gone back to being Ames, which is a modification of his birth name, James. And he has got his new partner, Katrina, pregnant—which is really fascinating, because you would have thought that after the hormone treatment it would not be possible. Torrey says she’s heard stories of it happening: former trans women going back to living as a man, and getting partners pregnant. Often they’re very surprised by this outcome. And how do you navigate around that? For Ames, in particular, the thought of being part of a heteronormative family unit with Katrina is a step too far. So bringing Reese into the equation seems to make sense to Ames, making it different to this normative narrative which isn’t something he’s comfortable with. Katrina is a woman of colour, who has had miscarriages before. So they’ve all been through transformations of some kind. There are so many interesting details and conversations—they talk about the politics of queerness and identity, the kind of discussions you can’t quite imagine on social media, because they have the freedom to talk without the backlash. Yeah. I also like the alternating timelines. I’ve heard people speaking about this—for transitioned and detransitioned characters, that time travelling— —is a way of moving them between their different gender identities without having to go through, in real time, the lengthy and painful and complex process of transition. Which you can read about elsewhere… like in Juliet Jacques ‘ fantastic Trans: A Memoir . I thought that was a really interesting editorial aspect, how it allows for hopping between the different identities, particularly of the detransitioned character Ames. We can touch on that, in as much as I would echo what I said a minute ago about trans parenthood—it feels like a lot of people aren’t comfortable with that yet. And the trans community still has to be pushing for recognition today. Trans awareness and acceptance is two or three decades behind the acceptance of gay people. It’s A Sin was on television recently, and it took me right back to what the culture was like in this country in the 1980s, when I was a teenager. If you look at the statistics, prejudice was at an all time high. It was absolutely the wost decade to start realising you might be gay. Gay people were hated. They were thought to be diseased. It was a terrible time. And, sadly, I think we’re in a sort of equivalent time of prejudice against trans people now."

"Torrey Peters’ Detransition, Baby took me—and the whole world—by storm when it burst onto the scene back in January. The story centres on an unexpected pregnancy: Ames, who until recently was living as a woman, has impregnated his boss and sometime-lover Katrina. Feeling unable to cope with the idea of traditional fatherhood, he proposes an unusual solution—that they invite his ex-partner Reese, a beautiful but self-destructive trans woman, to co-parent alongside them. The result is a funny, provocative and often profound novel-of-ideas, in which Ames, Katrina and Reese debate amongst themselves what it means to be a woman, a mother, and a family, in a series of raw and open-hearted conversations—sometimes clashes—interspersed with illuminating episodes from Ames and Reese’s past and present lives. What’s particularly notable about Peters’ writing is her willingness to interrogate emotional complexity: Reese is motherly and a trainwreck all at once; Ames’ bland exterior holds a reality of many-layered secrets; Katrina prides herself on her open-mindedness, but soon finds herself out of her depth. It’s a book that does not shy away from the big questions, and I’ve thought about it a great deal since. I’d recommend it to anyone."