Following their discharge from hospital, Mirrorstage follows its narrator on a road trip through the grey, liminal landscapes of modern Britain. As they pass graffitied bus shelters, construction sites and flooded motorways, factories and high-rises, the narrator’s internal and external journeys begin to converge, leading them down paths they have been trying to avoid: the mental illness and substance use that led them to the inpatient ward, the uneasy balance of their own gender identity, their troubled relationship with their estranged father, the perils and pleasures of the queer scene, and the shame that has haunted them throughout their life.

Woven around the psychoanalytic concept of its title, Mirrorstage is an experimental fable exploring the boundaries of selfhood and literary forms, told in fragments of prose and verse that are equal parts heartbreaking, sexy, and witty.

“Beautifully transcendent … Woolfian in its movement – meditative, precise but always reaching towards the ineffable, quietly devastating. I cried reading it, because of the sheer rarity of encountering a book that truly thinks about what it means to be queer in the world … and looks at age-old wounds with a new, subtle grace. A beautiful, searching little treasure, a profound articulation of what it means to survive. It’s wonderful.”

– Curtis Garner

“Mirrorstage is a tender and deeply felt quest for meaning and narrative, written with Scalpello's signature precision and empathy. A quietly monumental piece of work.”

– Julia Armfield 

“Peter Scalpello's extraordinary new book is a deeply introspective exploration of what it means to feel, to suffer, to reflect, and to live. To read Mirrorstage is to feel like you're inside the narrator's mind, not just listening to what they're thinking, but also empowered to analyse and understand at the same time. What an astonishing feat! This book is an exhilarating insight into the human experience. Scalpello’s skill shines when combining the perfect word with a psychological insight, and Mirrorstage is full of those diamonds. Clear, sharp, intimate, unusual, enduring — I love this book.”

– Adam Zmith

Peter Scalpello is a writer and psychotherapist from Glasgow, based in London. Their work has appeared in Five Dials, Granta, The London Magazine and The New York Times, among other publications. Peter’s book of poetry, Limbic (Cipher Press, 2022), was Highly Commended by the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, shortlisted for the Books Are My Bag Readers Award for Poetry, and adapted into a stage production at the University of Edinburgh. MIRRORSTAGE is their second book.