Terry Dactyl

From iconic author and activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore comes a breathless search for intimacy and connection, ranging from club culture to the art world, from the AIDS crisis to COVID-19.

Terry Dactyl has lived many lives. Raised by boisterous lesbian mothers in Seattle, she comes of age as a trans girl in the 1980s in a world of dancing queens and late-night house parties just as the AIDS crisis ravages their world. After moving to New York City, Terry finds a new family among gender-bending club kids bonded by pageantry and drugs, fiercely loyal and unapologetic. She lands a job at a Soho gallery, where, after partying all night, she spends her days bringing club culture to the elite art world.

Twenty years later, in a panic during the COVID-19 lockdown, Terry returns to a Seattle stifled by gentrification and pandemic isolation until resistance erupts following the murder of George Floyd, and her search for community ignites once again.

In propulsive, intoxicating prose, Terry Dactyl traces an extraordinary journey from adolescence to adulthood, delivering a vital portrait of queer identity in all its peril and possibility.

Publication date: November 11, 2025

Format: Trade Paper

Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.25

Page count: 304 pages

ISBN: 9781566897419

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of seven books, and the editor of six anthologies. Her most recent title, Touching the Art, was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award and a Pacific Northwest Book Award. Her previous title, The Freezer Door, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Her new novel is Terry Dactyl.

“Sycamore has crafted an arresting voice, equal parts youthful energy and hard-won wisdom, that swerves from offhanded aphorisms to lyrical images. . . . It’s indelible.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“[Sycamore’s] most ambitious and memorable novel to date.”

—Dave Wheeler, Publishers Lunch

“Full of glitter and grit. . . . Sycamore’s prose is fluid and funny, tender and propulsive, as she brings us along on Terry’s journey of love, loss, and finding herself.”

—Rebecca Hopman, Booklist

“By turns perceptive, touching, and occasionally funny, [Terry Dactyl] is a deep dive into what it means to live authentically as a queer progressive.”

—Eleanor Bader, The Indypendent

"Expansive and confidential, nostalgic and hopeful. You won’t be able to put it down."

—Lisa Ko, author of Memory Piece

"The historical novel on acid. This is a book about consciousness, art, and "getting ready" to be part of a world that will never be ready for you.”

—Sarah Schulman, author of The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity

“Hilarious, moving and radically political. The writing sparkles. Sycamore has excelled herself and that's saying something.”

—Isabel Waidner, author of Corey Fah Does Social Mobility

"Terry Dactyl made me cry and made me laugh out loud. It has all the pain and joy, struggle and delight of the lives of those who color outside the lines. It's a book about family and friendship and love and knowing when and how to change your life."

—McKenzie Wark, author of Love and Money, Sex and Death