CT LGBT+ Book Club

Join us to discuss our book club pick Stag Dance by Torrey Peters (description below)!

content warning: on pages 83-86 of the hardcover book, there’s a very graphic description of a pig being killed. If violence and gore are triggering for you, please skip over those pages

We’ll start with introductions, then discuss the book (what we liked, didn’t like, etc). We’ll wrap it up by discussing thoughts for our next months book pick.
Here’s a rough schedule:
• 7:00-7:15 — Arrive, order something to eat / drink, informal introductions.
• 7:15-8:00 — Discussion
• 8:00-8:30 — Planning for next month / continued chatting.
In addition to discussing the book, my hope is that this group will connect people with similar interests to form a community of queer folks who love to read! If we get off-topic on a subject we all are interested in, that’s great! And you’re welcome to stay after to chat and mingle.

**Location: Panera Southington

About Stag Dance by Torrey Peters
The kaleidoscopic follow-up to the bestselling Detransition, Baby

In this collection of one novel and three stories, Torrey Peters’s keen eye for the rough edges of community and desire push the limits of trans writing.

In Stag Dance, the titular novel, a group of restless lumberjacks working in an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance that some of them will volunteer to attend as women. When the broadest, strongest, plainest of the axmen announces his intention to dance as a woman, he finds himself caught in a strange rivalry with a pretty young jack, provoking a cascade of obsession, jealousy, and betrayal that will culminate on the big night in an astonishing vision of gender and transition.

Three startling stories surround Stag Dance: “Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones” imagines a gender apocalypse brought about by an unstable ex. In “The Chaser,” a secret romance between roommates at a Quaker boarding school brings out intrigue and cruelty. In the last story, “The Masker,” a party weekend on the Las Vegas strip turns dark when a young crossdresser must choose between two guides: a handsome mystery man who objectifies her in thrilling ways, or a cynical veteran trans woman offering unglamorous sisterhood.

Acidly funny and breathtaking in its scope, with the inventive audacity of George Saunders or Jennifer Egan, Stag Dance provokes, unsettles, and delights.

Join us to discuss our book club pick The Boy With a Bird in His Chest by Emme Lund (description below)!

We’ll start with introductions, then discuss the book (what we liked, didn’t like, etc). We’ll wrap it up by discussing thoughts for our next months book pick.
Here’s a rough schedule:
• 7:00-7:15 — Arrive, order something to eat / drink, informal introductions.
• 7:15-8:00 — Discussion
• 8:00-8:30 — Planning for next month / continued chatting.
In addition to discussing the book, my hope is that this group will connect people with similar interests to form a community of queer folks who love to read! If we get off-topic on a subject we all are interested in, that’s great! And you’re welcome to stay after to chat and mingle.

**Location: Panera Southington

About The Boy With a Bird in His Chest by Emme Lund

Though Owen Tanner has never met anyone else who has a chatty bird in their chest, medical forums would call him a Terror. From the moment Gail emerged between Owen’s ribs, his mother knew that she had to hide him away from the world. After a decade spent in hiding, Owen takes a brazen trip outdoors in the middle of a forest fire, and his life is upended forever.

Suddenly, Owen is forced to flee the home that had once felt so confining and hide in plain sight with his uncle and cousin in Washington. There, he feels the joy of finding a family among friends; of sharing the bird in his chest and being embraced fully; of falling in love and feeling the devastating heartbreak of rejection before finding a spark of happiness in the most unexpected place; of living his truth regardless of how hard the thieves of joy may try to tear him down. But the threat of the Army of Acronyms is a constant, looming presence, making Owen wonder if he’ll ever find a way out of the cycle of fear.

A heartbreaking yet hopeful novel about the things that make us unique and lovable, The Boy with a Bird in His Chest grapples with the fear, depression, and feelings of isolation that come with believing that we will never be loved, let alone accepted, for who we truly are, and learning to live fully and openly regardless.

Acidly funny and breathtaking in its scope, with the inventive audacity of George Saunders or Jennifer Egan, Stag Dance provokes, unsettles, and delights.

Join us to discuss our book club pick Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen (description below)!

We’ll start with introductions, then discuss the book (what we liked, didn’t like, etc). We’ll wrap it up by discussing thoughts for our next months book pick.
Here’s a rough schedule:
• 7:00-7:15 — Arrive, order something to eat / drink, informal introductions.
• 7:15-8:00 — Discussion
• 8:00-8:30 — Planning for next month / continued chatting.
In addition to discussing the book, my hope is that this group will connect people with similar interests to form a community of queer folks who love to read! If we get off-topic on a subject we all are interested in, that’s great! And you’re welcome to stay after to chat and mingle.

**Location: Panera Southington

About Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen
A rich, dark fantasy of destiny, death and the supernatural world hiding beneath the surface.

Nettie Lonesome lives in a land of hard people and hard ground dusted with sand. She's a half-breed who dresses like a boy, raised by folks who don't call her a slave but use her like one. She knows of nothing else. That is, until the day a stranger attacks her. When nothing, not even a sickle to the eye can stop him, Nettie stabs him through the heart with a chunk of wood and he turns to black sand.

And just like that, Nettie can see.

But her newfound sight is a blessing and a curse. Even if she doesn't understand what's under her own skin, she can sense what everyone else is hiding—at least physically. The world is full of evil, and now she knows the source of all the sand in the desert. Haunted by the spirits, Nettie has no choice but to set out on a quest that might lead her to find her true kin . . . if the monsters along the way don't kill her first.