The Maidenheads

A bighearted debut novel about queer yearning, indie musicians, and bushwacking a thorny path back to your first love

Jamie is bad at endings, which is why she's stuck at a dead-end Baltimore newspaper job, continuing to have break-up sex with her first-ever hetero partner, and haunted by the what-ifs of her ex-girlfriend Mari—a charismatic and brilliant musician—and their former band together, the Maidenheads. Since they (and their band) broke up a decade ago, Jamie hasn't been able to sing.

Then an unexpected opportunity to perform in DC with Mari's successful new band arises, and Jamie jumps at it. What begins as a return to music becomes a reckoning—with the weight of unfinished love, the voice she long buried, and her own complicated past. But as Jamie channels more of her energy into the band, other threads in her life begin to fray, and she must make some urgent choices about her future.

Electric, spine-tingling, and filled to the brim with tenderness and honesty, The Maidenheads is a novel about the tenacity of first love, the life-changing power of music, and the difficult, necessary work of becoming yourself.Named Most Anticipated by Goodreads, LGBTQ Reads and Debutiful

"A standout debut with an impeccable voice. This is a memorable story about music, love, and self-discovery. I was hooked from page one."
—Emily Austin, author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead

“A paean to the early 2000s, the D.C. indie music scene, and the pulsing ache of unresolved love.”
—Goodreads

“Like a perfect bubble bath on a cold rainy night, The Maidenheads is a novel you’ll sink into and won’t want to leave. It starts out in a melancholy minor key, but the writing glows with warmth and hope – and a molten core of eroticism. The characters are marvelously messy, and you’ll fall in love with them for it. Before you know it, you’re tearing through the pages, desperate to find out what Jamie does next and whether she ends up with Mari (and whether she should). The Maidenheads is a slice of life that reminds you how big life is, and how full of beautiful possibilities.”
—James Frankie Thomas, author of Idlewild

“Benny B. Peterson’s The Maidenheads is so much more than a music novel. This is an audacious and tender debut about the many long arcs that make up a life: the arc of self-discovery, of love, of art-making, of losing and forgiving your friends. Is it ever possible, Peterson asks, to recapture a life you abandoned? And why does nostalgia always turn into a trap? The Maidenheads is a smart, intoxicating bop of a novel.”
—Isle McElroy, author of People Collide

“Reading Benny Peterson's glorious debut The Maidenheads feels like being at an intimate small venue concert at two am with a friend you secretly yearn for but know it's a bad idea, but you're going to drink too much and make out anyway. It feels like hearing your favorite teenage angst playlist, and now you're an adult but the songs still get you. This is a perfect novel of messy queers, complicated all-the-feelings friendships, and growing up that never really ends. I loved it.”
—Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir

“I never wanted to stop reading this thrilling, lively, and moving book! Jamie and Mari felt so real that I expect their story to go on, expect to see them at a show, or walking down the street, holding hands, eating gummy bears, or fighting. A book about finding out who you are in art, gender and sexuality, family and love, and in every way that matters. This novel is as scrappy and full of heart as the Maidenhead’s music, and I flew through it with joy and plenty of tears.”
—Lydi Conklin, author of Songs of No Provenance

“This Bildungsroman captures the quivering intensity of first love and heartbreak in the most visceral way. How does one be a person in the world? And make art? And live in one’s truth? I was so moved and I couldn’t put it down.”
—Katya Apekina, author of Mother DollBenny B. Peterson (they/them) is a writer and editor based near Washington, DC. A contributing editor at Washingtonian magazine, they have also worked at Foreign Policy, the New Republic, and Street Sense, DC's street newspaper. They have written about culture, politics, gender, and LGBTQ+ issues for The New York Times, Washington Post, Elle, Slate, and The Atlantic, among other places, and received an MFA in fiction from Bennington.