TORREY PETERS
Author
The author of the smash debut novel "Detransition," "Baby" is avoiding the sophomore slump with this spring’s genre-bending "Stag Dance."
WHAT’S YOUR TRADEMARK?
For years, I have driven a pink motorcycle—a Yamaha F2700. But recently, I’ve entered a suit era, and that can be my new calling card. I’ve been wearing a black suit with a silk pussybow blouse and it has felt really good for me. Of course, there’s no reason I couldn’t wear the suit on the motorcycle.
NAME AN INFLUENCE OF YOURS THAT MIGHT SURPRISE PEOPLE.
The Icelandic writer Halldór Laxness. I think about his masterpiece Independent People once a week. I could make myself cry by reciting the characters’ names. My life as a New York transsexual and the life of a poor Icelandic sheep farmer during the early 1900s may not seem to have much overlap (they don’t), but Laxness’s wry compassion is the tone I constantly strive for.
“I’ve entered a suit era, and that can be my new calling card. I’ve been wearing a black suit with a silk pussybow blouse and it has felt really good for me.”
ARE PEOPLE EVER STARSTRUCK BY YOU?
I’m a novelist, not exactly the most glamorous of the arts. I have to do what I can to romanticize the profession. Therefore, yes! So many groupies. Many fainting admirers. Everyone is always like, “Please recite a passage of your work while we bite our lower lips and swoon!”
WHAT’S SOMETHING THAT PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT YOU?
I wrote a book, Detransition, Baby about motherhood and the desire to have children. I think for a while people thought I was baby-crazy. I’m not. I wrote that book to figure out whether I wanted to be a mother, and it helped me figure out that I didn’t really need to be one. As soon as I decided that, I ended up as a stepmother to a 15-year-old. That’s exactly the right amount of parenting responsibility for me. My son, I believe, would agree.
in your life?
