In the Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado (Paperback)

Nonfiction - Biography & Autobiography - Memoirs - LGBTQ+ - Family & Relationships - Abuse - Domestic Partner Abuse - Social Science - Gender Studies

Published: 12/1/2020

A revolutionary memoir about domestic abuse by the award-winning author of Her Body and Other Parties

In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming.

And it’s that struggle that gives the book its original structure: each chapter is driven by its own narrative trope―the haunted house, erotica, the bildungsroman―through which Machado holds the events up to the light and examines them from different angles. She looks back at her religious adolescence, unpacks the stereotype of lesbian relationships as safe and utopian, and widens the view with essayistic explorations of the history and reality of abuse in queer relationships.

Machado’s dire narrative is leavened with her characteristic wit, playfulness, and openness to inquiry. She casts a critical eye over legal proceedings, fairy tales, Star Trek, and Disney villains, as well as iconic works of film and fiction. The result is a wrenching, riveting book that explodes our ideas about what a memoir can do and be.

AUTHOR BIO: 

Carmen Maria Machado is the author of Her Body and Other Parties, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize. She lives in Philadelphia with her wife.

"Daringly structured and ruthlessly inquisitive. . . . The heart of this history is clear, deeply felt, and powerful. A fiercely honest, imaginatively written, and necessary memoir from one our great young writers." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Machado has written an affecting, chilling memoir about domestic abuse." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

"[Machado's] writing exhibits all of the formal precision of her fiction, and the book draws the reader deep into the varied rooms of the haunted house of the past. Highly recommended." --Booklist, starred review

"In this open examination of abuse--how it starts, how it hides, how it tears at the victim's sense of self--Machado reimagines and plays with the memoir form, bridging the gap between reader and author in a way that is original and haunting." --Library Journal

"Absolutely remarkable. . . . What makes this book truly exceptional is how Machado creates an archive where, shamefully, there is none." --Roxane Gay