Perverts: a short story collection
Available for pre-order! Out July 7, 2026
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A full-frontal confrontation of the ways we perform desire and shame—from the downright bizarre to the frighteningly relatable—by the award-winning author of A Sharp Endless Need
An employee at a hunting ground where people pay to act out hate crimes prepares to meet their girlfriend’s parents for the first time. A self-destructive client engages in an affair with their therapist, careening their relationship toward its inevitable breaking point. At a theme park where men pay to ogle women dressed as sirens, a mild-mannered boat attendant gets engaged to the star performer. And in the title story, a pregnant internet sex worker blackmails her clients into attending a disastrous party.
Nothing is off limits for Mac Crane as they rework classic stories of rejection, isolation, and connection to suggest that the so-called pervert, by existing in the margins of society, may be the one who sees the world most clearly. Crane brings their keen eye for the unsavory to seventeen transgressive stories that are as tantalizing and addictive as the characters’ experiences. A provocative and uproarious collection about pleasure, performance, and pain, Perverts is an exaltation of the awesome depravity of queer modernity.
A propulsive and nostalgic coming-of-age novel about the relationship between two teammates on a rural high school basketball team, from the Lambda Award-winning author of I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself.
Star point guard Mack Morris’s senior year of high school begins with twin cataclysms: the death of her father and the arrival of transfer student Liv Cooper. On the court, Mack and Liv discover an exhilarating, game-winning chemistry; off the court, they fall into an equally intoxicating more-than-friendship that is out of bounds for their small Pennsylvania town in 2004, and especially, for Liv’s conservative mother. As Mack’s desire and grief collide with drugs, sex, and the looming college signing deadline, she is forced to reckon with the disconnects between her past and her future—and fight for the life she wants for herself, whether or not Liv will be on the court beside her.
Written with the lush longing of Andre Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name and the obsessive attention of Jean Kyoung Frazier’s Pizza Girl, and with all the romance and feeling of the beloved 2000 movie Love & Basketball, Crane’s sophomore novel is a voice-driven, literary treatment of the big feelings of first love, intimacy, heartbreak, grief, and of course, sports.
Praise for A Sharp Endless Need
“A Sharp Endless Need is a brilliant novel, so alive and vibrating that it took my breath away. Crane writes with piercing, heartbreaking insight about sacrificing the future for the present, with complex characters who navigate adolescence, desire, and basketball, and all the ways in which we make and break ourselves again and again. Crane is fearless, ferocious, and blessed with the kind of vision that lets you see everything in real time and find your way to something exceptional.”
—Kevin Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See Here
“Marisa Crane’s A Sharp Endless Need is more than a basketball novel—it is a richly evocative and nostalgic book, a propulsive and tender narrative, told with compassion and intelligence. Crane beautifully captures desire and competitiveness. This is the basketball novel I’ve been waiting for!”
—Brandon Hobson, author of Where the Dead Sit Talking
“A Sharp Endless Need is a vibrant, beautiful book not only brimming with stunning prose and sharp, quick dialogue but also offering a thoughtful and gentle meditation on the why behind affections: why people love what they love, what keeps people returning, what gets people to stay until they no longer can. It is a book that pushed me to reconsider devotion and the many shapes it can take.”
—Hanif Abdurraqib, New York Times bestselling author of There’s Always This Year
“No one writes about basketball and the body the way Marisa Crane does. A Sharp Endless Need is the rare sports novel that both the most rabid fan and someone who’s never seen a game will love. Crane has crafted a novel filled with sweat and longing, striking a balance between tenderness, ecstasy, and wry humor that leaves no corner of the heart unexplored. It’s a gorgeous queer love story that both cuts and heals my teenage heart.”
—Jean Kyoung Frazier, author of Pizza Girl
I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself
named a New York Times Editor’s Choice, January Indie Next Pick, and LAMBDA Literary Award Winner.
Dept. of Speculation meets Black Mirror in this lyrical, speculative debut about a queer mother raising her daughter in an unjust surveillance state.
In a United States not so unlike our own, the Department of Balance has adopted a radical new form of law enforcement: rather than incarceration, wrongdoers are given a second (and sometimes, third, fourth, and fifth) shadow as a reminder of their crime—and a warning to those they encounter. Within the Department, corruption and prejudice run rampant, giving rise to an underclass of so-called Shadesters who are disenfranchised, publicly shamed, and deprived of civil rights protections.
Kris is a Shadester and a new mother to a baby born with a second shadow of her own. Grieving the loss of her wife and thoroughly unprepared for the reality of raising a child alone, Kris teeters on the edge of collapse, fumbling in a daze of alcohol, shame, and self-loathing. Yet as the kid grows, Kris finds her footing, raising a child whose irrepressible spark cannot be dampened by the harsh realities of the world. She can’t forget her wife, but with time, she can make a new life for herself and the kid, supported by a community of fellow misfits who defy the Department to lift one another up in solidarity and hope.
With a first-person register reminiscent of the fierce self-disclosure of Sheila Heti and the poetic precision of Ocean Vuong, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself is a bold debut novel that examines the long shadow of grief, the hard work of parenting, and the power of queer resistance.
Praise for I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself
"Marisa Crane’s I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself is a captivating portrait of queerness, grief, and redemption that challenges assumptions about parenting and justice. Crane’s sharp and funny dystopian novel explores how easy it is to become our worst selves, and how hard it is to recover from life-changing mistakes. "
— Isle McElroy, author of The Atmospherians
"Marisa Crane writes of queer parenthood with razor-sharp precision: you could cut yourself on her sentences, or you could find in them a gorgeous, subversive home. With a voice as innovative as it is boldly honest, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself offers us a speculative world that refracts, mirrors, and expands our own."
— Carolina De Robertis, author of The President and the Frog
“In I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself, Marisa Crane writes with immense beauty and ferocity about surveillance and injustice, grief and love. Kris is an unforgettable guide through the novel's speculative world, at once hilarious and heart-sick, and her furiously lyric voice will haunt you long after the final page. I loved this powerfully original debut.”
— Laura van den Berg, author of I Hold a Wolf by the Ears
"Marisa Crane's I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself is a delicious novel of ideas that made me consider justice, grief, desire, and friendship. It also made me laugh out loud. Crane's blend of grief, humor, and imagination is fearless. They have a rollercoaster of an imagination—this is an exciting debut and the start of a promising career."
— Megan Giddings, author of Lakewood and The Women Could Fly