CRAWL: STORIES

A darkly comic, introspective debut collection that looks beneath the surface of trans life in 2010s Seattle

People called it paradise, but baby, it wasn’t.

What to do when starting testosterone unlocks a newfound desire for men? How to respond when your boss’s boss asks if you’ve had “the surgery” and then requests you talk her niece out of transitioning? What obligation do you have to intervene in the faltering mental health of the baby trans drug dealer you’ve met only once while tripping on the acid he sold you?

The young transmasculine characters in Crawl navigate these and other questions in the dive bars, bathhouses, parks, workplaces, music venues, beaches, and college campuses of 2010s Seattle. Max Delsohn’s stories—by turns exuberant, heartfelt, tragic, and wry—portray the pleasures and pains of sex and romance, the possibilities and ambivalences of gender expression, and the joys and failures of community in a city and a time that has branded itself a radical queer utopia but proves much more complicated in reality.

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“Max Delsohn has a poet’s sense of yearning, a stand-up’s sense of timing, and a 3.A.M hookup’s desperate frankness about sex—all of which combine to make Crawl one of my favorite story collections of the past few years.” 
—Torrey Peters, author of Stag Dance

“Adventurous, witty, heartfelt, and very moving, Crawl takes us on a journey through the land of longing and reminds us, in the way that only literature can, that we all live in that land; that “identity” has to do with the particular, lovely flavor of our longing, and of that essential pursuit called: trying to be one’s true self.  Max Delsohn, a wildly talented, very bold, very funny new writer, has the rare gift of knowing how to (wryly) celebrate life, love, and desire in all their forms.”
—George Saunders, author of Liberation Day

“In this megavolt debut, Max Delsohn's wild sense of humor is matched only by the keen precision of the prose.  These stories explore gender and what it means to be. Read these sexy, hilarious, electric stories and be awed.”
—Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Chain-Gang All-Stars

“Max Delsohn is a brilliant new voice, as funny, wild, and original as they come. He writes with bracing honesty and complexity from an insider’s perspective.  His work can be sharply ironic and wonderfully entertaining while also exploring deeper questions about connection, about dignity, about identity.”
—Dana Spiotta, author of Wayward