Welcome to Book Talk, where we help you find new fuel for your bookish obsession. While you might not find these authors while scrolling short-form content online, you will find their work to be significant, impactful, and, hopefully, something you reach for time and again. Happy reading!
I stumbled on Machado much like I do other authors — while wandering aimlessly through the public library. And now, I fear I need to confess something: I often choose books by how thin they are (your girl does not have the attention span for rambling epics), and Her Body and Other Parties (2017), unassuming on the shelf among all the other books, fit the bill.
Carmen Maria Machado is nothing if not impressive. Author of a graphic novel, a memoir, and a book of short stories, Machado has been a finalist for a number of awards — including the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction in 2017 and the Shirley Jackson Award in both 2014 and 2017 — and has been awarded numerous residencies and fellowships during her career so far.
As you no doubt know if you read last issue’s Book Talk, I’m a spooky guy. And so when I read the synopsis for this book, you better believe I checked it out faster than you can say haunted house. (Or approximately that long … You get it.) Coincidentally, I’m always on the lookout for the next book to make me check under the bed before I go to sleep.
And while Her Body and Other Parties was undeniably haunting, it stuck with me for its ability to go beyond what we expect of horror, to imbue it with something altogether human — making it truly terrifying.
I was so taken with her writing that I promptly checked out everything else the library had of hers, which, at the time, was The Low, Low Woods (2020) — a creepy graphic novel illustrated by artist DaNi. After a brief time, during which I waited impatiently, In the Dream House (2019) was ready for me to pick up. The wait was worth it: I devoured it — a narrative memoir that maps out a difficult period in her life— in one sitting.
You know those books where you keep telling yourself you’ll finish the chapter and go to bed, and suddenly it’s four in the morning and you’re haunting your home, bleary-eyed, unable to sleep because what you just read has melded with your soul? No? That’s too bad — you should read In the Dream House.
It’s not just that Machado’s writing is creepy, spooky, all sorts of unsettling; it’s that she seems to be able to peer directly into your soul. She works her way into your head and finds what you’re most afraid of — be it monsters or your own duplicitous heart.
I want to leave you with a fine example of this, from Her Body and Other Parties:
“Many people live and die without ever confronting themselves in the darkness.”
Happy reading!
