Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
2017 novel by Andrea Lawlor
Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl is a novel by American writer Andrea Lawlor. It was published in 2017 by Rescue Press. The book is heavily influenced by the queer culture of the 1990s, and took Lawlor 15 years to write.
The picaresque novel follows Paul, a 23-year-old who discovers that he can shapeshift and uses this ability to alter his gender expression while wandering the United States. He is a flâneur who enjoys wearing performative outfits and seeks out various sexual experiences with a diverse assortment of partners; his gender identity is never made explicit. Set in 1993, the novel takes place in various locations where the author has lived. The text exhibits postmodern influences, using footnotes and pastiche, with short fables interspersed throughout.
Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl is Andrea Lawlor's debut novel. The book received positive reviews, with reviewers praising its novel approach to gender and sex as well as its innovative structure and period accuracy. It was republished by Vintage Books in 2019, and Lawlor received a Whiting Award for the book.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl” is 2017 novel by Andrea Lawlor. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Paul, Takes and Form, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “2017 novel by Andrea Lawlor” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q123339920. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2017, 1993 and 2019.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.