‘One of the most exciting - and one of the most fun - novels of the decade’ - Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You

It’s 1993 and Paul Polydoris tends bar at the only gay club in a university town thrumming with politics and partying. He studies queer theory, has a lesbian best friend, makes zines, and is a flâneur with a rich dating life. But Paul’s also got a secret: he’s a shapeshifter. Oscillating wildly from Riot Grrrl to leather cub, Women’s Studies major to trade, Paul transforms his body at will in a series of adventures that take him from Iowa City to Boystown to Provincetown and finally to San Francisco – a journey through the deep queer archives of struggle and pleasure.

Andrea Lawlor’s debut novel offers a speculative history of early ’90s identity politics during the heyday of ACT UP and Queer Nation. Paul Takes the Form of A Mortal Girl is a riotous, razor-sharp bildungsroman whose hero/ine wends his way through a world gutted by loss, pulsing with music, and opening into an array of intimacy and connections.

Now part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.

‘Playful, sexy, smart’ - Carmen Maria Machado
‘Evocative and urgent . . . and very funny’ – The Observer
‘“90s punk Orlando”. . . a pretty wild ride’ – Dazed & Confused
‘Sexy, outrageous, completely compulsive’ – Daisy Johnson

"Playful and sexy, Lawlor’s novel is a hymn to the pleasures of gender fluidity – but also a tribute to queer theory, LGBT communities and to reading itself." - Guardian

"Despite being unapologetically queer, is a book that deserves to break out of the LGBT speciality bookshops . . . Lawlor’s writing is evocative and urgent . . . and very funny" - Observer

"Lawlor successfully mixes pop culture, gender theory, and smut, but the great achievement here is that Paul is no mere symbol but a vibrantly yearning being, “like everybody else, only more so.”" - New Yorker

"It’s an epic, but set in 1990s alternative communities from Iowa to San Francisco, with a brief detour via Chicago. A lot of the book is a commentary on the minutiae of subcultures. It’s a mythic structure – Paul is this seducer who has the ability to switch genders, so Paul can become Polly. It’s an insane and amazing book – it references queer literature and theory, but it’s super funny and sexy." - AnOther

"It’s not hard to see why Lawlor’s been heralded at the forefront of trans literature. This is an original addition to the trans fiction canon." - Dazed and Confused

"Best described as “90s punk Orlando”. . . The book is a pretty wild ride" - Dazed and Confused

"In Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, Andrea Lawlor manages to define queerness in a way few books have been able to achieve" - Skinny

"As Paul crosses the nation, having adventures and making connections, he explores his sexuality and his many, different identities, in this riotously funny and sometimes tragic celebration of LGBTQ culture." - Red Magazine