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In the Dream House
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Memoir & Autobiography (2019)For years Carmen Maria Machado has struggled to articulate her experiences in an abusive same-sex relationship. In this extraordinarily candid and radically inventive memoir, Machado tackles a dark and difficult subject with wit, inventiveness and an inquiring spirit, as she uses a series of narrative tropes—including classic horror themes—to create an entirely unique piece of work which is destined to become an instant classic.
251 pages, Hardcover
First published November 5, 2019
5609 people are currently reading
311846 people want to read
About the author
Carmen Maria Machado
92 books11.6k followersCarmen Maria Machado's debut short story collection, Her Body and Other Parties, was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Kirkus Prize, LA Times Book Prize Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, and the winner of the Bard Fiction Prize, the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize, and the Crawford Award. In 2018, the New York Times listed Her Body and Other Parties as a member of "The New Vanguard," one of "15 remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century."
Her essays, fiction, and criticism have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Granta, Tin House, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, The Believer, Guernica, Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Michener-Copernicus Foundation, the Elizabeth George Foundation, the CINTAS Foundation, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. She is the Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania and lives in Philadelphia with her wife.
Her essays, fiction, and criticism have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Granta, Tin House, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, The Believer, Guernica, Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Michener-Copernicus Foundation, the Elizabeth George Foundation, the CINTAS Foundation, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. She is the Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania and lives in Philadelphia with her wife.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 24,786 reviews
August 18, 2022
Very few works of writing are more fraught, more difficult, than a memoir. It’s mental self-flagellation: the prying open of one’s life, the splitting of the past like a cracked egg, the choice to trap yourself in the mirrored halls of your own memory, the equivalent of digging a nail into an open sore.
Writers like Machado offer up their ability to communicate the inexpressible through language. But it isn’t an easy feat—“putting language to something for which you have no language.” Machado couldn’t find a language for her wordless agony, and like many other queer people in abusive same-sex relationships, she’s had to gather up the silence like a mantle and carry it along with her, step by step. Hers, like many others, is a story like a cry into empty space, with no walls to throw a lonely echo back. This is, Machado explains, “the violence of the archive”, how it wells up and pulls so many stories under, in ways foreseen and unforeseen, as often denied as acknowledged. How its silence is so loud it can blast a blanket of quiet that smothers queer relationship trauma.
In her memoir, Machado joins her account to the ones before her, long kept under a pall of silence. Into this “archival silence”, Machado screams, and the sound crashes, breaks like a wave and floods the pages with all the force of the ocean.
**
In every sense, this memoir is a masterpiece. Machado audaciously pushes the boundaries of the memoir form, reshaping the very definition of it to suit the thrumming drum of her remembrance. And once unearthed, there is no containing the memories. The words whip out of Machado like a spirit breaking free of the skin that restrains it, and that restlessness is echoed in the way the chapters are broken apart and re-formed and siphoned into a series of vignettes, translated into narrative traditions (romance novel, stoner comedy, road trip, self-help bestseller) and literary tropes (Unreliable Narrator, Pathetic Fallacy, Choose Your Own Adventure). “I broke the stories down,” Machado writes, “because I was breaking down and didn’t know what else to do.”
In the Dream House is frequently footnoted too, with Machado accounting fairy tale motifs as they occur, jabbing a dose of eerie fantasy into the memoir—reflecting, perhaps, the war that stirred in Machado between belief and disbelief as her relationship with her abusive ex-girlfriend turned from rocky to surreal to dysfunctional. It’s an unusual structure, but Machado carries off with dazzling aplomb. She also occasionally breaks from first-person narration to address a “you”, a younger Machado from the past. This has the potential to be gimmicky, but the author does it to genuinely good effect: the “I” is grounded in the present, while the “you” gives the sense of being past everything, of looking back at land from an ice floe drifted out to sea.
Above all, In the Dream House is a powerful illustration of the ways that abusers know how to show themselves to best advantage, how to cast their victims into shadow and doubt. Machado understood very keenly how it is to receive a love you could not understand why you were worthy of. Her abusive ex-girlfriend—the woman from the Dream House—picked up with quick and unflagging instinct the traces of everything in the world Machado was most insecure about, how she liked to raise her hopes with a look and break them with another. The manipulation, the gaslighting, and here a chapter called Choose Your Own Adventure, an exercise in futility as Machado struggles to follow the complex footwork that led them to that dysfunctional conversational pivot. The carefully curated insults, against which soft things might smash and be broken, and the following kindnesses that stung worse than cruelty ever could. That impulse, too: to keep it inside, to hide it—in the raw hope that burying it all away will diminish its power and give it a less vital and terrible form. How easy it could all be forgotten, distilled into habit and convenience. “Sit with this,” Machado heartbreakingly urges herself at one point, “don’t forget it’s happening.” Later, an understanding, like a thumb pressed to her throat: “This is not normal. This is not normal. This is not normal.” There are no bounds to how many emotional octaves the author can reach, and my heart felt as raw as a burn by the end.
As we plow ahead, barreling toward the closing pages, Machado writes—paraphrasing the final lines of a Panamanian folktale: “my tale goes only to here; it ends, and the wind carries it off to you”. The story might be over, but for many readers—who could say none of their own, but saved it in their chests, where it did not need to be spoken—it will echo on and on.
Writers like Machado offer up their ability to communicate the inexpressible through language. But it isn’t an easy feat—“putting language to something for which you have no language.” Machado couldn’t find a language for her wordless agony, and like many other queer people in abusive same-sex relationships, she’s had to gather up the silence like a mantle and carry it along with her, step by step. Hers, like many others, is a story like a cry into empty space, with no walls to throw a lonely echo back. This is, Machado explains, “the violence of the archive”, how it wells up and pulls so many stories under, in ways foreseen and unforeseen, as often denied as acknowledged. How its silence is so loud it can blast a blanket of quiet that smothers queer relationship trauma.
In her memoir, Machado joins her account to the ones before her, long kept under a pall of silence. Into this “archival silence”, Machado screams, and the sound crashes, breaks like a wave and floods the pages with all the force of the ocean.
**
In every sense, this memoir is a masterpiece. Machado audaciously pushes the boundaries of the memoir form, reshaping the very definition of it to suit the thrumming drum of her remembrance. And once unearthed, there is no containing the memories. The words whip out of Machado like a spirit breaking free of the skin that restrains it, and that restlessness is echoed in the way the chapters are broken apart and re-formed and siphoned into a series of vignettes, translated into narrative traditions (romance novel, stoner comedy, road trip, self-help bestseller) and literary tropes (Unreliable Narrator, Pathetic Fallacy, Choose Your Own Adventure). “I broke the stories down,” Machado writes, “because I was breaking down and didn’t know what else to do.”
In the Dream House is frequently footnoted too, with Machado accounting fairy tale motifs as they occur, jabbing a dose of eerie fantasy into the memoir—reflecting, perhaps, the war that stirred in Machado between belief and disbelief as her relationship with her abusive ex-girlfriend turned from rocky to surreal to dysfunctional. It’s an unusual structure, but Machado carries off with dazzling aplomb. She also occasionally breaks from first-person narration to address a “you”, a younger Machado from the past. This has the potential to be gimmicky, but the author does it to genuinely good effect: the “I” is grounded in the present, while the “you” gives the sense of being past everything, of looking back at land from an ice floe drifted out to sea.
Above all, In the Dream House is a powerful illustration of the ways that abusers know how to show themselves to best advantage, how to cast their victims into shadow and doubt. Machado understood very keenly how it is to receive a love you could not understand why you were worthy of. Her abusive ex-girlfriend—the woman from the Dream House—picked up with quick and unflagging instinct the traces of everything in the world Machado was most insecure about, how she liked to raise her hopes with a look and break them with another. The manipulation, the gaslighting, and here a chapter called Choose Your Own Adventure, an exercise in futility as Machado struggles to follow the complex footwork that led them to that dysfunctional conversational pivot. The carefully curated insults, against which soft things might smash and be broken, and the following kindnesses that stung worse than cruelty ever could. That impulse, too: to keep it inside, to hide it—in the raw hope that burying it all away will diminish its power and give it a less vital and terrible form. How easy it could all be forgotten, distilled into habit and convenience. “Sit with this,” Machado heartbreakingly urges herself at one point, “don’t forget it’s happening.” Later, an understanding, like a thumb pressed to her throat: “This is not normal. This is not normal. This is not normal.” There are no bounds to how many emotional octaves the author can reach, and my heart felt as raw as a burn by the end.
As we plow ahead, barreling toward the closing pages, Machado writes—paraphrasing the final lines of a Panamanian folktale: “my tale goes only to here; it ends, and the wind carries it off to you”. The story might be over, but for many readers—who could say none of their own, but saved it in their chests, where it did not need to be spoken—it will echo on and on.
March 20, 2024
i read most of this stone-faced, face unchanged even as i was recalling repressed traumas with needle-like stabs, even as my heart ached for carmen maria machado, even as the pained gorgeousness of the writing took my breath away.
https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.co...
and then i got to the part where things are allowed to be happy again. and i burst into tears.
this is a beautifully written, brilliant researched, painful and raw and horrific and wonderful nightmarish fairytale of a book. it's 5 stars and i will never read it again but i will think about it all the time.
bottom line: sometimes, you read a masterpiece. sometimes, a book hits you at exactly the right time. finding both in one tome is once in a lifetime.
-----------------
tbr review
do you ever put off reading a book because you know it'll hit you too hard?
file "one of the best writers i can think of writing about the thing that is closest possible to home" under that.
https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.co...
and then i got to the part where things are allowed to be happy again. and i burst into tears.
this is a beautifully written, brilliant researched, painful and raw and horrific and wonderful nightmarish fairytale of a book. it's 5 stars and i will never read it again but i will think about it all the time.
bottom line: sometimes, you read a masterpiece. sometimes, a book hits you at exactly the right time. finding both in one tome is once in a lifetime.
-----------------
tbr review
do you ever put off reading a book because you know it'll hit you too hard?
file "one of the best writers i can think of writing about the thing that is closest possible to home" under that.
June 28, 2019
With exacting, exquisite prose, Carmen Maria Machado writes about the complexities of abuse in queer relationships in her absolutely remarkable memoir In The Dream House. She deftly chronicles the wildness of succumbing to desire, the entrancing tenderness of loving and being loved, the fragility of hope, and the unspeakable horror when the woman you love is a monster beneath and on the surface of her skin. What makes this book truly exceptional is how Machado creates an archive where, shamefully, there is none. She demands that we face the truths we are all too often reluctant to confront about the kinds of suffering we are willing to tolerate and the suffering we willfully ignore. Machado has already dazzled us with her brilliant fiction writing and she exceeds all expectations as she breaks new ground in what memoir can do.
Also, fuck that trash ass bitch. She ain't shit. At all.
Also, fuck that trash ass bitch. She ain't shit. At all.
January 11, 2021
Machado uses her lyrical writing skills to articulate her experiences in an abusive same-sex relationship, a difficult subject that is not often discussed. The writing is lovely and haunting, taking the lens of speculative horror fiction to frame her real experience. She describes the complexities of being in an abusive relationship with the added layer of societal expectations for what a queer relationship should look like; these topics and emotions would definitely resonate with anyone who has had similar experiences in toxic relationships. The pretty prose and poetry of the writing is what cinches the 5 star rating for me.
February 28, 2021
I am both sheltered and naive, hopefully a little less of each after reading this memoir. It took a short time for me to adjust to the format - some “chapters” as short as one sentence - but I was hooked from the start. Like Tara Westover’s “Educated,” this story evoked emotions across the spectrum of human feeling - for oneself and for others. I marvel at the strength of people like Ms. Machado, and I am grateful that she shared her life with us. She is a treasure.
November 21, 2019
YES YES YES!!! A 1000x better than expected, and I expected nothing short of holy scripture.
Months earlier I stumbled upon the description and knew this book would be monumental. As early reviews crept in, my anticipation grew. I had my Kindle fully charged and stayed up until midnight so I could start reading the second it released. By 2am I was 30% done. A few marathon readings later, I reached the last page with breathless finality. The result? Monumental doesn't even begin to cover it.
The funny thing, it's not monumental because of what happens. Bad relationships happen all the time. Abusive relationships, mental and/or physical, happen all the time. It's talked about less in queer relationships, that's true, and Machado does a great job pointing that out, but I doubt anybody will be dumbfounded by what they read. They will be surprised, however, that there's someone brave enough to talk about it, and by how personal she's willing to get. They will be surprised by how she structures it.
The structure really is what makes this a masterpiece. It's not just the experience, it's the delivery. The darkest memories are brilliantly conveyed in second person and through varying lens. Most of them literary devices. Machado recounts her life through the eyes of Chekhov's Gun, Choose Your Own Adventure, Haunted House, Erotica, Plot Twist, and dozens more. Each section is short and precise. Never a wasted word. For those uncomfortable reading about abuse, she doesn't take it too far either. This isn't battered woman porn. She doesn't go on and on. We get snippets, glimpses of a life that we can easily piece together, and, more importantly, relate to.
What she accomplishes for the queer community specifically, I think, is breaking the ice. After hard-fought battles for marriage equality, there's this unspoken rule that gay relationships must work. If they don't, people will point and say I told you so. By extension, rights may be taken away. Obviously that's not the only factor that kept Machado in her relationship. It may not even be in the Top 10, but it is a shadow that hovers over the scene. She points to lesbian stereotypes as well. Society expects men to be abusive, but two women? Their relationship should be a utopia, right? These stereotypes, this ice, is something she clearly wants to break apart. And she succeeds tremendously.
Of course you don't have to be queer to recognize this is a master work of memoir and creative non-fiction. It is a testament that all experiences, however ordinary or unique, should be shared. Perhaps the most powerful aspect of the book is the relentless honesty. She veils it slightly by the structure and 2nd person, but in a way this makes the experience more real. More true. And the accomplishment, I think, is for any one person to read this and be able to know that, for sure, they are not alone.
Months earlier I stumbled upon the description and knew this book would be monumental. As early reviews crept in, my anticipation grew. I had my Kindle fully charged and stayed up until midnight so I could start reading the second it released. By 2am I was 30% done. A few marathon readings later, I reached the last page with breathless finality. The result? Monumental doesn't even begin to cover it.
The funny thing, it's not monumental because of what happens. Bad relationships happen all the time. Abusive relationships, mental and/or physical, happen all the time. It's talked about less in queer relationships, that's true, and Machado does a great job pointing that out, but I doubt anybody will be dumbfounded by what they read. They will be surprised, however, that there's someone brave enough to talk about it, and by how personal she's willing to get. They will be surprised by how she structures it.
The structure really is what makes this a masterpiece. It's not just the experience, it's the delivery. The darkest memories are brilliantly conveyed in second person and through varying lens. Most of them literary devices. Machado recounts her life through the eyes of Chekhov's Gun, Choose Your Own Adventure, Haunted House, Erotica, Plot Twist, and dozens more. Each section is short and precise. Never a wasted word. For those uncomfortable reading about abuse, she doesn't take it too far either. This isn't battered woman porn. She doesn't go on and on. We get snippets, glimpses of a life that we can easily piece together, and, more importantly, relate to.
What she accomplishes for the queer community specifically, I think, is breaking the ice. After hard-fought battles for marriage equality, there's this unspoken rule that gay relationships must work. If they don't, people will point and say I told you so. By extension, rights may be taken away. Obviously that's not the only factor that kept Machado in her relationship. It may not even be in the Top 10, but it is a shadow that hovers over the scene. She points to lesbian stereotypes as well. Society expects men to be abusive, but two women? Their relationship should be a utopia, right? These stereotypes, this ice, is something she clearly wants to break apart. And she succeeds tremendously.
Of course you don't have to be queer to recognize this is a master work of memoir and creative non-fiction. It is a testament that all experiences, however ordinary or unique, should be shared. Perhaps the most powerful aspect of the book is the relentless honesty. She veils it slightly by the structure and 2nd person, but in a way this makes the experience more real. More true. And the accomplishment, I think, is for any one person to read this and be able to know that, for sure, they are not alone.
February 28, 2020
You enjoy reading memoirs because you like to get a better understanding of people, how they think and feel, to learn different perspectives. You are lesbian and particularly enjoy memoirs by people in the LGBQT+ community. You see this memoir come out (ha ha!) about a lesbian relationship and you notice a lot of people really love it. You assume you will too. You read and read and you don't ever get inside the author's head or have any idea of what she thinks and feels. You don't because she rarely describes her feelings and she writes in the freaking second person present tense and you're like "What the hell is this? Who writes a memoir in the second person??".
However, since the author writes very well, you continue reading, hoping she'll eventually open up and really let you into her life. You'll eventually get a sense of who she is. You're hoping she'll stop writing as though you the reader are the one going through all this instead of the author. You wonder what so many people love about this book that maybe would work for you as a novel (you doubt it because you'd still not get to know the characters), but as a memoir? Nope, just not doing it for you.
OK, that's enough writing in the second person; I'll stop trying to make the review about you the reader and let you know that this review is what I think about the book. Better?
Again, what the hell??? Perhaps Ms. Machado thought that by writing in the second person, the reader would feel like they were in her shoes and maybe wonder how they would feel if they were. And maybe that's what it did for some people, but for me? I kept reading the book wondering if I would ever learn anything about what she was feeling. Perhaps it was too painful for her to write in the first person but in that case, it wasn't time for her to write a memoir about painful experiences and she should have waited until she'd had therapy and worked through her feelings.
Maybe Ms. Machado simply wanted to bring awareness to the fact that same-sex relationships can be unhealthy and abusive, just as straight ones sometimes are. If that was all she wanted to do, then she did that very well. Maybe a lot of people were unaware of this fact, but being lesbian, I've known of three abusive relationships between women over the years. Therefore, I didn't need to read the book but I am glad the book sheds light on this topic which is rarely ever talked about.
As a memoir however, the book just didn't work for me. There were entire chapters describing movies and tv episodes. Who does that? It's a memoir, not TV Guide! I know almost as little about Carmen Machado as I did prior to reading this book. I don't even know how she and her ex-girlfriend supported themselves. There was talk of various places they lived, but not about what they did to pay the rent and buy groceries -- did they even buy groceries and pay the rent or did they squat illegally? And feelings? I don't think I've ever read a memoir where the author talked so little about how they felt. Or even what they were thinking. She merely relates a few emotionally abusive episodes and some of the manipulation tactics her ex used on her and then goes on with the movie references and a lot of discussion (repetitive) about how there can be abuse in same-sex relationships. It's elegantly written but........
You probably won't read any more of her books, especially not a memoir if she happens to write another in the future. You are glad this book is finished, though it wasn't a terrible read. Still, you are ready to move on to better books. Yay for you! I mean... me.
4 stars for the quality of the writing. 1 star for content.
However, since the author writes very well, you continue reading, hoping she'll eventually open up and really let you into her life. You'll eventually get a sense of who she is. You're hoping she'll stop writing as though you the reader are the one going through all this instead of the author. You wonder what so many people love about this book that maybe would work for you as a novel (you doubt it because you'd still not get to know the characters), but as a memoir? Nope, just not doing it for you.
OK, that's enough writing in the second person; I'll stop trying to make the review about you the reader and let you know that this review is what I think about the book. Better?
Again, what the hell??? Perhaps Ms. Machado thought that by writing in the second person, the reader would feel like they were in her shoes and maybe wonder how they would feel if they were. And maybe that's what it did for some people, but for me? I kept reading the book wondering if I would ever learn anything about what she was feeling. Perhaps it was too painful for her to write in the first person but in that case, it wasn't time for her to write a memoir about painful experiences and she should have waited until she'd had therapy and worked through her feelings.
Maybe Ms. Machado simply wanted to bring awareness to the fact that same-sex relationships can be unhealthy and abusive, just as straight ones sometimes are. If that was all she wanted to do, then she did that very well. Maybe a lot of people were unaware of this fact, but being lesbian, I've known of three abusive relationships between women over the years. Therefore, I didn't need to read the book but I am glad the book sheds light on this topic which is rarely ever talked about.
As a memoir however, the book just didn't work for me. There were entire chapters describing movies and tv episodes. Who does that? It's a memoir, not TV Guide! I know almost as little about Carmen Machado as I did prior to reading this book. I don't even know how she and her ex-girlfriend supported themselves. There was talk of various places they lived, but not about what they did to pay the rent and buy groceries -- did they even buy groceries and pay the rent or did they squat illegally? And feelings? I don't think I've ever read a memoir where the author talked so little about how they felt. Or even what they were thinking. She merely relates a few emotionally abusive episodes and some of the manipulation tactics her ex used on her and then goes on with the movie references and a lot of discussion (repetitive) about how there can be abuse in same-sex relationships. It's elegantly written but........
You probably won't read any more of her books, especially not a memoir if she happens to write another in the future. You are glad this book is finished, though it wasn't a terrible read. Still, you are ready to move on to better books. Yay for you! I mean... me.
4 stars for the quality of the writing. 1 star for content.
November 19, 2019
There is no readying yourself for this one. Carmen is a modern legend, case closed.
September 17, 2020
2 Stars
I don't usually review books that are about a survivor recounting their journey because I believe these stories should be told whether writing is something you are gifted at or not. That's why I never rated Chanel Miller's Know My Name because although there were flaws in style and presentation who am I to tell a survivor that they didn't do their own story justice. That being said although abuse in queer relationships are stories that need to be told. The fact of the matter is Carmen Maria Machado wrote this book like a professional 'I know my shit' writer. She did not tell her story in plain English she used fancy language and experimental techniques. She showed us she is a "proper" writer so if that's how she wants to tell her story then she is opening herself up to assholes like me that are going to review it.
I am clearly in the minority here when I say that I did not enjoy... feels like the wrong word. Let's say I just felt nothing for this memoir. No sympathy, no outrage, no freakin interest. There was so much fluffy writing and fancy metaphors that I had to drudge through to get to the actual story. By the time I got to the meat and bones of this abusive relationship I was so bored and spent by the reading journey. Taking readers in and out of her actual abusive relationship with flower-y imagery just made me as reader feel disconnected and a bit confused. How am I suppose to sit and feel this trauma the author faced when she keeps pulling me away from it. It was as if a friend was coming up to me being like "Hey this woman I'm dating spent the night screaming at me as I hid in the shower" and before I can really wrap my mind around that bomb my friend just dropped she goes, "Look at that flower isn't it beautiful, looks at the colours and what they symbolize." Thats distracting right? The impact of the first sentence kind of loses its weight. Now imagine that kind of whiplash in an entire novel.
Overall, this memoir felt like an essay that needed a shit ton of filler to make a novel. The dramatic ass words and weird little research snippets of old movies just felt like the author was really trying to stretch a 5 page novella. I wish this story could have been stripped down to its core so I could actually feel and understand the difficulty of being in an abusive queer relationship instead of feeling like my usual sociopathic self for not caring and being on the precipice of DNFing.
I don't usually review books that are about a survivor recounting their journey because I believe these stories should be told whether writing is something you are gifted at or not. That's why I never rated Chanel Miller's Know My Name because although there were flaws in style and presentation who am I to tell a survivor that they didn't do their own story justice. That being said although abuse in queer relationships are stories that need to be told. The fact of the matter is Carmen Maria Machado wrote this book like a professional 'I know my shit' writer. She did not tell her story in plain English she used fancy language and experimental techniques. She showed us she is a "proper" writer so if that's how she wants to tell her story then she is opening herself up to assholes like me that are going to review it.
I am clearly in the minority here when I say that I did not enjoy... feels like the wrong word. Let's say I just felt nothing for this memoir. No sympathy, no outrage, no freakin interest. There was so much fluffy writing and fancy metaphors that I had to drudge through to get to the actual story. By the time I got to the meat and bones of this abusive relationship I was so bored and spent by the reading journey. Taking readers in and out of her actual abusive relationship with flower-y imagery just made me as reader feel disconnected and a bit confused. How am I suppose to sit and feel this trauma the author faced when she keeps pulling me away from it. It was as if a friend was coming up to me being like "Hey this woman I'm dating spent the night screaming at me as I hid in the shower" and before I can really wrap my mind around that bomb my friend just dropped she goes, "Look at that flower isn't it beautiful, looks at the colours and what they symbolize." Thats distracting right? The impact of the first sentence kind of loses its weight. Now imagine that kind of whiplash in an entire novel.
Overall, this memoir felt like an essay that needed a shit ton of filler to make a novel. The dramatic ass words and weird little research snippets of old movies just felt like the author was really trying to stretch a 5 page novella. I wish this story could have been stripped down to its core so I could actually feel and understand the difficulty of being in an abusive queer relationship instead of feeling like my usual sociopathic self for not caring and being on the precipice of DNFing.
May 20, 2025
“I thought you died, but right now, I’m not sure you did.”
This is my favorite book of all time. Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir about a queer abusive relationship blends reality with media and its mirrors. It flurries between grandeur and media and the simple, the human, varies between detailed tales and hypothetical quandaries to tell the story of a relationship.
Everything is a metaphor and not. Homes are a metaphor, the freudian idea of a basement threatening everything. The dream house is not necessary for domestic abuse, but hell, it helps. A house is never apolitical. As this wonderful New Yorker article tells it, “In the Dream House is primarily about the quandary of constructing In the Dream House.” It’s a story about the telling of stories that are not told, a going-through of every possible medium with which you can articulate abuse.
There’s a specific chapter from this novel I think about a lot, Dream House as I Love Lucy, in which Machado allegorizes her relationship to I Love Lucy, a comedy wherein the protagonist can never learn. In simple detail, she explains the plot as a narrator never able to escape her narrative but always the butt of the joke. And then she ends the chapter:
Isn’t this funny? This is funny. It’s so funny. It could be funny. One day it will be funny. Won’t it?
And isn’t this truly what you become—the butt of the joke, everyone laughing, the details so obviously absurd, the ex so demonic in characterization, but the joke’s not funny, and it can’t be, and you can’t laugh. I’ve explained this chapter end to a shocking number of friends and it never fails to incite a little bit of shell shock. I promise, it is even more when you read it.
I had several favorite chapters of this book, listed here with key quotes:
→Dream House as Lesbian Pulp Novel
The cover tells you what you need to know: depraved inversion, seduction, lascivious butches and big-breasted seductresses, love that dare not speak its name. There are censors to get past, so tragedy is a foregone conclusion. It was written to the dna of the dream house, maybe back when it was just a house, maybe even back when it was just Bloomington, Indiana, or before humans even existed there at all.
→Dream House as Lesson Learned
It was a power struggle, which is weird because you had no power at all.
→Dream House as I Love Lucy
Isn’t this funny? This is funny. It’s so funny. It could be funny. One day it will be funny. Won’t it?
→Dream House as Sniffs from the Ink of Women
Years later, if I could say anything to her, I would say for fuck’s sake, stop making us look bad.
→Dream House as Comedy of Errors
Also, you’re afraid you’re going to miss your flight, because your girlfriend spent her time this morning putting on her face, an expression you’ve always found sort of funny and vaguely sexist but that now just strikes you as horrifyingly ominous, because it suggests that she has one face and has to put on another. And you saw underneath it last night.
And you wish she was a man, because then at least it could reinforce ideas people had about men.
→Dream House as Demonic Possession
But isn’t the best part of a possession story that the inflicted can do and say horrific things, for which they will receive a carte blanche forgiveness the next day?
→Dream House as Ambiguity
The abused needed to be a feminine figure: meek, straight, white, and the abuser a masculine one. The queer woman’s gender identity is tenuous and can be stripped away from her at any moment should it suit some straight party or another.
→Dream House as Five Lights
The final word, lights, is practically oatmeal in his mouth. (This chapter was one of my favorites in the book.)
→Dream House as Choose Your Own Adventure
You watch the darkness until the darkness leaves you, or you leave it. You dream about the future. It’s going to be alright. One day your wife will gently adjust your arm if it touches her face at night, soothingly straightening it while kissing you.
→Dream House as Hotel Room In Iowa City
You only speak the language of giving yourself up.
→Dream House as The Queen and The Squid
Not that I want to eat you; I just want you nestled in my stomach for all eternity.
→Dream House as A Death Wish
You’ll wish she hit you. You have this fantasy, this fucked up fantasy, of opening up a photo on your phone where you look glazed, and disinterested, and half your face is covered in a pulsing star. You want something black and white more than you want anything in this world.
→Dream House as Public Relations
Pen poised over paper, wondering if they would let the world know if they were unmade by someone with just as little power as they.
→Dream House as Cliche
The stoning. This image has stayed with me for so long. What both has been and is a punishment for homosexuality, inflicted by the woman she loved. Stone. Stone butch, stonewall, queer history studded with stones like jewelry.
I adored this book, a lot. Quite a lot. I'm really hoping for more from this author, and know I will think about this book for a long, long time.
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October 25, 2022
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December 31, 2021this one is tough for me. i’m glad that this book exists and it’s one i could see myself recommending, but it’s not one that i particularly enjoyed. enjoyed isn’t a great word, but i’m lacking a better one.
i think a good way to say it is that i like what this book said but not the way it was told. the short vignettes, the lack of linear story telling, and the flowery prose did not work for me.
i think a good way to say it is that i like what this book said but not the way it was told. the short vignettes, the lack of linear story telling, and the flowery prose did not work for me.
August 28, 2021
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While I definitely admire Carmen Maria Machado for having not only the strength to tackle such a difficult subject matter but to do so by sharing her own personal experience with her readers, and part of me also can't help but to recognise that In the Dream House: A Memoir is one of the most innovative memoir I have ever read, I would be lying if I said (or wrote) that it was flawlessly executed. I'm definitely glad to see that many other reviewers are praising it and or have clearly found it to be an emotional and striking read...nevertheless I will try to momentarily resist peer pressure and express my honest opinion instead, which is that In the Dream House: A Memoir struck me as a rather disjointed amalgamation.
On the one hand we have pages and pages chock-full of quotations from secondary sources discussing the way in which American society tends to dismiss or not acknowledge that sexual, emotional, and physical abuse within the queer community is possible. These sections seemed to adopt an essayist's language. However, while these sections used certain academic terms (possibly not accessible to a wide readership) and were structured like essays of sorts they didn't really develop Machado's initial argument (that abusive queer or LGBTQ relationships are often called in to question since many consider the idea of a woman abusing another woman unbelievable). I didn't agree with some of her readings of certain queer films nor did I find her own brand of queer criticism all that compelling.
The other segments in this memoir draw from Machado's personal history with an abusive relationship. Her partner (a woman) emotionally and psychologically abused her throughout the entirety of their relationship. Machado deviates from the usual recognisably 'memoir' way of presenting one's own story offering us instead with fragments of her time in this abusive relationship. She addresses this past 'self' in the secondary person, so there are a lot of 'you' this and 'you' that, and her abuser as 'the woman in the Dream House'. Here her language becomes even more flowery and the imagery and metaphors were rather abstract. These sections seemed snapshots more than anything else. The 'poetic' style seemed to take on more importance than Machado's own story.
I also wasn't all that keen on the way she traces past conversations and incidents back to folklore. She seems a bit too ready to connect every single moment of this awful relationship back to Jungian archetypes. It was weird and it made some aspects of memoir seem a bit artificial.
Also while I get that sometimes including graphic or deeply personal moments is horrifyingly necessary when discussing abuse (such as Isabelle Aubry does in her memoir where she talks in detail about the horrific sexual abuse her father inflicted upon her) here we had these random sex scenes which seemed to be included merely to be subversive.
Overall I just couldn't look past my dislike for Machado writing style. Still, I'm definitely in the minority on this one so I recommend you check this one out and see for yourself whether you are interested in reading this.
While I definitely admire Carmen Maria Machado for having not only the strength to tackle such a difficult subject matter but to do so by sharing her own personal experience with her readers, and part of me also can't help but to recognise that In the Dream House: A Memoir is one of the most innovative memoir I have ever read, I would be lying if I said (or wrote) that it was flawlessly executed. I'm definitely glad to see that many other reviewers are praising it and or have clearly found it to be an emotional and striking read...nevertheless I will try to momentarily resist peer pressure and express my honest opinion instead, which is that In the Dream House: A Memoir struck me as a rather disjointed amalgamation.
On the one hand we have pages and pages chock-full of quotations from secondary sources discussing the way in which American society tends to dismiss or not acknowledge that sexual, emotional, and physical abuse within the queer community is possible. These sections seemed to adopt an essayist's language. However, while these sections used certain academic terms (possibly not accessible to a wide readership) and were structured like essays of sorts they didn't really develop Machado's initial argument (that abusive queer or LGBTQ relationships are often called in to question since many consider the idea of a woman abusing another woman unbelievable). I didn't agree with some of her readings of certain queer films nor did I find her own brand of queer criticism all that compelling.
The other segments in this memoir draw from Machado's personal history with an abusive relationship. Her partner (a woman) emotionally and psychologically abused her throughout the entirety of their relationship. Machado deviates from the usual recognisably 'memoir' way of presenting one's own story offering us instead with fragments of her time in this abusive relationship. She addresses this past 'self' in the secondary person, so there are a lot of 'you' this and 'you' that, and her abuser as 'the woman in the Dream House'. Here her language becomes even more flowery and the imagery and metaphors were rather abstract. These sections seemed snapshots more than anything else. The 'poetic' style seemed to take on more importance than Machado's own story.
I also wasn't all that keen on the way she traces past conversations and incidents back to folklore. She seems a bit too ready to connect every single moment of this awful relationship back to Jungian archetypes. It was weird and it made some aspects of memoir seem a bit artificial.
Also while I get that sometimes including graphic or deeply personal moments is horrifyingly necessary when discussing abuse (such as Isabelle Aubry does in her memoir where she talks in detail about the horrific sexual abuse her father inflicted upon her) here we had these random sex scenes which seemed to be included merely to be subversive.
Overall I just couldn't look past my dislike for Machado writing style. Still, I'm definitely in the minority on this one so I recommend you check this one out and see for yourself whether you are interested in reading this.
January 2, 2020
There is too much Iowa MFA in Machado’s writing, and ultimately the elaborate, intricate, inventive, convoluted prose takes away from her personal story, IMO.
November 12, 2022
This is a memoir written by Carmen Maria Machado about an abusive same-sex relationship. There are only very few memoirs discussing this topic. This is also not written in a regular, commonly followed manner. The dark, witty writing style wielding the narrative tropes will give you a unique reading experience.
Some of you might feel this book is an esoteric one, especially when reading the initial part of it. But soon, we will understand the genuine nature of what the author is trying to convey, and we will start loving this book. The author didn't try to write certain controversial things euphemistically. This raw and straightforward writing style that the author espoused will make us love this book more. Instead of going for extraneous information, she writes everything straight to the point that gives us a crisp, perfectly edited memoir and extricates the readers from reading a lengthy 700-page book. This book makes us think about the fate of guileless hapless individuals in our society.
What I learned from this book
1) How to make him/her happy?
This is one of the most searched questions by people who are in a relationship. My opinion is to be yourself and don't go out of the way to make your partner happy. It isn't easy to maintain such behavior consistently. When the honeymoon phase ends, this sort of behavior also ends, and problems will start creeping up. If you try your best to make your partner happy and if he/she still asks for more, there is a high probability that you are in a toxic relationship.
“How to read her coldness: She is preoccupied. She is unhappy. She is unhappy with you. You did something and now she's unhappy, and you need to find out what it is so she will stop being unhappy. You talk to her. You are clear. You think you are clear. You say what you are thinking and you say it after thinking a lot, and yet when she repeats what you've said back to you nothing makes sense. Did you say that? Really? You can't remember saying that or even thinking it, and yet she is letting you know that it was said, and you definitely meant it that way."
2) Nonstalgia
Most of you might be familiar with nostalgia, but nonstalgia will be comparatively a new term. This term is discussed in detail in this book.
"Nonstalgia means the unsettling sensation that you never be able to fully access the past; that once you are departed from an event, some essential quality of it is lost forever. A reminder to remember: just because the sharpness of the sadness has faded does not mean that it was not, once, terrible. It means only that time and space, creatures of infinite girth and tenderness, have stepped between the two of you, and they are keeping you safe as they were once unable to."
3) Who are the people who fall into the traps woven by toxic people?
If you are a person who grew up in a home where both your parents were not ready to hear your problems and your words were not given much importance, there is a high probability that you will fall into a toxic relationship in the future. You will feel that you are alone, you are useless, and nobody values you and wants to love you. Then bolt out of the blue, a person appears in your life who mirrors you, gives you undivided attention, and makes you think that you are special. Everything happens so quickly that you won't even get time to consider what is happening. This is the usual pattern of toxic relationships.
There are also other groups of people who get the attention of empaths by telling their life story as a sob story, exaggerating the setbacks they had in their lives, and emotionally manipulating them by playing the victim card.
"Your female crushes were always floating past you, out of reach, but she touches your arm and looks directly at you and you feel like a child buying something with her own money for the first time."
My favourite three lines from this book
“You tried to tell your story to people who didn't know how to listen.”
"We deserve to have our wrongdoing represented as much as our heroism, because when we refuse wrongdoing as a possibility for a group of people, we refuse their humanity"
“When the historian of queer experience attempts to document a queer past, there is often a gatekeeper, representing a straight present.”
What could have been better?
The writing style of this memoir is different from the other memoirs. So you will find it difficult to grasp ideas written in the initial part of the book until you get accustomed to it.
Rating
5/5 This book might be taken as a heretical one by some, while for some others, it will be a galvanizing one. This is not a facile attempt by a person to write a memoir, but it is a truly accomplished, invigorating work that everyone must-read.
February 1, 2020
Such a powerful memoir about a horrifying abusive relationship. In spare vignettes, Carmen Maria Machado documents the beginning, middle, and end of her relationship with an ex-girlfriend who threatened, humiliated, and tried to control her. I’m a sucker for short chapters and Machado writes them well here, describing the terror and confusion she felt at the hands of her ex-girlfriend with concise and exacting detail. With courageous honesty, she shares both the desire she felt for her ex-girlfriend at the beginning of their relationship and her want to feel wanted, as well as the gaslighting she experienced and the difficulty she encountered in seeing the truth of her relationship even when her ex hurt her. As someone who grew up with an emotionally abusive mother, I related viscerally to some of the sentiments Machado shares, like when she wishes that she had a bruise or a physical indication that her ex had abused her even though she knows that wishing for that is awful in its own way.
I appreciated Machado’s commentary on the minimization of abuse in queer relationships in relation to the overall lack of representation of queer relationships, especially lesbian relationships. Though I know relationships between two women and two men are in some ways incomparable, it made me think about how we often turn away from critically examining queer relationships just because we’re often grateful for the representation at all – like Call Me By Your Name , which includes its own emotionally unsatisfying/obsessive relationship (which I recognize is different from the relationship Machado describes in this memoir), or the oftentimes toxic relationship between Brian and Justin in Queer as Folk. Machado does a great job centering women’s romantic relationships with one another in In the Dream House without glorifying or fetishizing them.
At times I felt pulled out of the narrative when Machado included some of the more experimental chapters, the ones that strayed from describing her relationship with her ex-girlfriend and her own life. At the same time I recognize that these chapters could have served to represent how the mind often deals with trauma, through taking oneself out of the event and dissociating into alternative narratives. I think a part of me wanted a little more from this memoir – such as her healing process after the relationship aside from her developing a romantic relationship with Val – though I totally respect Machado’s decision to include whatever she wanted to and did not want to in this memoir. Recommended for fans of memoir and queer books and books about relationships.
I appreciated Machado’s commentary on the minimization of abuse in queer relationships in relation to the overall lack of representation of queer relationships, especially lesbian relationships. Though I know relationships between two women and two men are in some ways incomparable, it made me think about how we often turn away from critically examining queer relationships just because we’re often grateful for the representation at all – like Call Me By Your Name , which includes its own emotionally unsatisfying/obsessive relationship (which I recognize is different from the relationship Machado describes in this memoir), or the oftentimes toxic relationship between Brian and Justin in Queer as Folk. Machado does a great job centering women’s romantic relationships with one another in In the Dream House without glorifying or fetishizing them.
At times I felt pulled out of the narrative when Machado included some of the more experimental chapters, the ones that strayed from describing her relationship with her ex-girlfriend and her own life. At the same time I recognize that these chapters could have served to represent how the mind often deals with trauma, through taking oneself out of the event and dissociating into alternative narratives. I think a part of me wanted a little more from this memoir – such as her healing process after the relationship aside from her developing a romantic relationship with Val – though I totally respect Machado’s decision to include whatever she wanted to and did not want to in this memoir. Recommended for fans of memoir and queer books and books about relationships.
January 1, 2022
"mas a natureza do silêncio do arquivo pressupõe que as narrativas de determinadas pessoas, e suas nuances, sejam engolidas pela história; só vemos as narrativas que se destacam porque são obscenas o suficiente para conquistar a atenção da maioria."
se eu pudesse, dava umas 113 estrelas pra essa obra-prima aqui. quero ler tudo que carmen escreve.
se eu pudesse, dava umas 113 estrelas pra essa obra-prima aqui. quero ler tudo que carmen escreve.
December 6, 2023
TI ODIO PERCHÉ TI AMO
Storia autobiografica in forma di memoir, sciolto e libero e ibrido, come quelli che ho imparato ad apprezzare negli ultimi tempi (Quchi di Caterina Venturini, Gli Argonauti di Maggie Nelson, Vertigo di Louise DeSalvo), e come gli ultimi due nutrito di tematiche queer.
Sono memoir che con grande facilità si rifanno ad altra letteratura, classica o contemporanea, a saggistica, filosofia, psicanalisi, cronaca: ogni occasione è buona per allargare il discorso, o approfondirlo, per ragionare con confini meno rigidi e limitati.
D’altronde lo confessa la stessa Machado:
Tutto ciò che vedo e con cui interagisco è ispirazione per la mia scrittura: televisione, film, videogiochi, internet, libri…
Queer qui sta per lesbismo: la storia riguarda la storia d’amore tra due donne, amore che da appassionato e travolgente ben presto si trasforma in un insistito, risaputo, trito, squallido caso di abuso domestico. Di sottomissione volontaria. Di dipendenza affettiva.
Non riuscire a liberarsi da chi dicendo che ti ama ti fa male, da chi esercita violenza, psicologica e verbale (in questo caso quella fisica è assente) in nome dell’amore.
Carmen Machado è la prima a stupirsi (e io sorpreso subito dopo di lei) del numero di casi già rilevati, segnati e segnalati, di violenza di donne su donne, di abuso in coppie di lesbiche. A questo punto lo stupore ha ragion d’essere – se ancora può averla – per il reato in sé, per il ripetersi - a tutte le latitudini e longitudini, tra tutte le varianti di genere sessuale possibile – di violenza, sopruso, abuso, sopraffazione, molestia.
I capitoli sono brevi, quando non brevissimi, e ciascuno analizza la storia sotto una prospettiva differente, passando dall’abuso domestico, alla comunità queer, ai diritti delle minoranze.
Louise Bourgeois: Femme Maison, 1994.
Carmen Machado ha trentasei anni, ha pubblicato questo memoir a trentatré, ha raccontato fatti accaduti sette anni prima, quando era ancora a metà dei suoi venti.
Fatti ambientati principalmente in Iowa – la scuola di scrittura creativa - ma con diramazioni in tutti gli States, da est a ovest, da su a nord. Coppia girovaga e viaggiatrice.
Se devo fare un appunto è che avrei preferito maggiore approfondimento di cause e meccanismi: Machado lascia il suo lettore (che lei chiama sempre lettrice) a chiedersi se la fidanzata violenta stesse riproducendo il modello paterno. Possibile, probabile. Ma siamo lasciati a farci domande.
Momento magico: le pagine dedicate a un film che ho sempre molto amato, Gaslight – Angoscia, capolavoro firmato da George Cukor nel 1944 – regista celebre per portare le sue attrici sull’orlo di una crisi di nervi in nome di un miglior rendimento – film nel quale il mio livello di identificazione nella protagonista Ingrid Bergman rasentava l’autentica angoscia.
Ti odio perché ti amo? Ti amo perché ti odio?
Storia autobiografica in forma di memoir, sciolto e libero e ibrido, come quelli che ho imparato ad apprezzare negli ultimi tempi (Quchi di Caterina Venturini, Gli Argonauti di Maggie Nelson, Vertigo di Louise DeSalvo), e come gli ultimi due nutrito di tematiche queer.
Sono memoir che con grande facilità si rifanno ad altra letteratura, classica o contemporanea, a saggistica, filosofia, psicanalisi, cronaca: ogni occasione è buona per allargare il discorso, o approfondirlo, per ragionare con confini meno rigidi e limitati.
D’altronde lo confessa la stessa Machado:
Tutto ciò che vedo e con cui interagisco è ispirazione per la mia scrittura: televisione, film, videogiochi, internet, libri…
Queer qui sta per lesbismo: la storia riguarda la storia d’amore tra due donne, amore che da appassionato e travolgente ben presto si trasforma in un insistito, risaputo, trito, squallido caso di abuso domestico. Di sottomissione volontaria. Di dipendenza affettiva.
Non riuscire a liberarsi da chi dicendo che ti ama ti fa male, da chi esercita violenza, psicologica e verbale (in questo caso quella fisica è assente) in nome dell’amore.
Carmen Machado è la prima a stupirsi (e io sorpreso subito dopo di lei) del numero di casi già rilevati, segnati e segnalati, di violenza di donne su donne, di abuso in coppie di lesbiche. A questo punto lo stupore ha ragion d’essere – se ancora può averla – per il reato in sé, per il ripetersi - a tutte le latitudini e longitudini, tra tutte le varianti di genere sessuale possibile – di violenza, sopruso, abuso, sopraffazione, molestia.
I capitoli sono brevi, quando non brevissimi, e ciascuno analizza la storia sotto una prospettiva differente, passando dall’abuso domestico, alla comunità queer, ai diritti delle minoranze.
Louise Bourgeois: Femme Maison, 1994.
Carmen Machado ha trentasei anni, ha pubblicato questo memoir a trentatré, ha raccontato fatti accaduti sette anni prima, quando era ancora a metà dei suoi venti.
Fatti ambientati principalmente in Iowa – la scuola di scrittura creativa - ma con diramazioni in tutti gli States, da est a ovest, da su a nord. Coppia girovaga e viaggiatrice.
Se devo fare un appunto è che avrei preferito maggiore approfondimento di cause e meccanismi: Machado lascia il suo lettore (che lei chiama sempre lettrice) a chiedersi se la fidanzata violenta stesse riproducendo il modello paterno. Possibile, probabile. Ma siamo lasciati a farci domande.
Momento magico: le pagine dedicate a un film che ho sempre molto amato, Gaslight – Angoscia, capolavoro firmato da George Cukor nel 1944 – regista celebre per portare le sue attrici sull’orlo di una crisi di nervi in nome di un miglior rendimento – film nel quale il mio livello di identificazione nella protagonista Ingrid Bergman rasentava l’autentica angoscia.
Ti odio perché ti amo? Ti amo perché ti odio?
January 5, 2020
In the Dream House
is a most unmemoir-like memoir. This account of Carmen Maria Machado’s years in an abusive same-sex relationship plays with form, blending elements of literary criticism, pop culture essays, folk tales and the shadowy worlds of her short fiction.
To tell this real-life story, Machado cleaves herself in two: the first-person, present-day “I” — settled, successful, safe — addresses the second-person, past “you”. This textual interplay between two Carmens affords more closeness than addressing an imagined reader would.
“You cried in front of many people. You missed readings, parties, the supermoon. You tried to tell your story to people who didn’t know how to listen. You made a fool of yourself, in more ways than one.
I thought you died, but writing this, I’m not sure you did.”
Machado has then further cut and polished her pain into dozens of tiny gleaming facets, variations in style that are employed as lenses, each one offering a new revelation. Among these, for example, are Dream House as lipogram; as prisoner’s dilemma; as Schrödinger’s Cat; as Choose Your Own Adventure®; as comedy of errors. This all could have fallen into a gimmicky heap, but the blend of formal inventiveness and raw vulnerability is executed beautifully.
In the Dream House is a memoir from someone who not only has a painful experience to relate and work through, but who can also REALLY write AND think AND synthesise, who in her own words can braid the clays of memory and essay and fact and perception together, smash them into a ball, roll them flat. Overall it is unconventional (and as such won’t be to everyone’s taste), but not in a way that’s distancing or abstract. A genuinely memorable and highly impressive work. 5 stars
To tell this real-life story, Machado cleaves herself in two: the first-person, present-day “I” — settled, successful, safe — addresses the second-person, past “you”. This textual interplay between two Carmens affords more closeness than addressing an imagined reader would.
“You cried in front of many people. You missed readings, parties, the supermoon. You tried to tell your story to people who didn’t know how to listen. You made a fool of yourself, in more ways than one.
I thought you died, but writing this, I’m not sure you did.”
Machado has then further cut and polished her pain into dozens of tiny gleaming facets, variations in style that are employed as lenses, each one offering a new revelation. Among these, for example, are Dream House as lipogram; as prisoner’s dilemma; as Schrödinger’s Cat; as Choose Your Own Adventure®; as comedy of errors. This all could have fallen into a gimmicky heap, but the blend of formal inventiveness and raw vulnerability is executed beautifully.
In the Dream House is a memoir from someone who not only has a painful experience to relate and work through, but who can also REALLY write AND think AND synthesise, who in her own words can braid the clays of memory and essay and fact and perception together, smash them into a ball, roll them flat. Overall it is unconventional (and as such won’t be to everyone’s taste), but not in a way that’s distancing or abstract. A genuinely memorable and highly impressive work. 5 stars
February 8, 2024
this is the most creatively written memoir I've ever read, detailing a toxic queer relationship and the way you can easily slip into an abusive relationship without realizing it
April 28, 2020
Wow, this is a very powerful memoir about an abusive same-sex relationship. I listened to the audiobook for this, and this story was honestly felt like reading her diary - it was so raw and honest and devastating, plus the writing is absolutely gorgeous. I haven't read about abuse in a same-sex relationship before, so this book definitely shines a light on something very important.
But with quotes like this one, I was blown away by the writing: “A reminder to remember: just because the sharpness of the sadness has faded does not mean that it was not, once, terrible. It means only that time and space, creatures of infinite girth and tenderness, have stepped between the two of you, and they are keeping you safe as they were once unable to.”
But with quotes like this one, I was blown away by the writing: “A reminder to remember: just because the sharpness of the sadness has faded does not mean that it was not, once, terrible. It means only that time and space, creatures of infinite girth and tenderness, have stepped between the two of you, and they are keeping you safe as they were once unable to.”
January 10, 2022
I listened to this as an audiobook and this is one of the most unique listening experience of a memoir I ever consumed. It's hard for me to explain, I was always aware that this was a memoir. But the way this was narrated and written made me feel like I was swept into a story that wasn't told on a way I'm used to. I needed no time to readjust when I picked it back up I completely fell back into the flow. This deals with an difficult topic however. Abuse can come in every format and in every relationship regardless of sexuality and gender.
November 2, 2022
getting my Halloween spooky fix with a reread of this because 1) nothing chills me more than how good Carmen Maria Machado’s writing is and 2) the scariest monsters are the real ones!
——————
3/26/21: well that was absolutely brilliant
short review to come when I can gather my thoughts, though nothing will be able to sum up this masterpiece
——————
3/26/21: well that was absolutely brilliant
short review to come when I can gather my thoughts, though nothing will be able to sum up this masterpiece
September 19, 2022
as a survivor i've found that stories about abuse are most cathartic when it's only the very end that makes me cry. it's most real when i'm as numb to what is happening as the author--until the curtain is lifted and it's ok for things to be ok again, and we are both lost in the dark, wondering what to do with so much peace and silence. those are the moments that are most poignant for me. i loved this memoir for that; and for its unique narrative structure, its compelling voice, and its sharp critique of institutional roadblocks to widespread, uncomplicated awareness of queer domestic violence. brilliant.
October 27, 2021
Winner of the Lambda Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction 2020
In this intimate, formally experimental memoir, Machado recalls how she survived an abusive relationship, but gives her own experiences a wider context: As she illustrates by giving examples from real life, art and scientific texts, violence in lesbian relationships has rarely been acknowledged and discussed, thus rendering the victims almost invisible and making them even more vulnerable. With "In the Dream House", Machado wants to add to the archive of stories about the human experience, turning the phenomenon of abuse between queer women into a topic to be considered, to be pondered. To talk about queer people as abusers is in fact, Machado states, an act of liberation: "We deserve to have our wrongdoing represented as much as our heroism, because when we refuse wrongdoing as a possibility for a group of people, we refuse their humanity."
Machado met her unnamed ex-girlfriend when she was studying for an MFA in Iowa, and with time, "the woman in the dream house" became more and more controlling, passive-aggressive and also physically violent, gaslighting Machado, insulting and diminishing her and playing with her insecurities, until Machado finally found the strength to exit the relationship that had become a prison. The mechanisms Machado depicts will probably be recognizable for many people, but I have to admit that before the author pointed it out to me, I hadn't actively thought about the fact that there are hardly any texts that talk about abuse in a queer context, which means that queer people in these situations do not find themselves represented in (real and fictional) stories and are thus deprived of a language to express what they are experiencing. And although Machado explicitly states that it is her goal to change that, the situations and effects she depicts are in many respects universal. Machado is just a fantastic psychological writer with keen sensibilities, and she finds highly evocative words and images to convey her own past.
This main narrative thread is not only split in multiple short chapters, it is also interspersed with flashbacks, scientific research on the topic as well as examples from literature, music, films and real life that support Machado's argument that violence in lesbian relationship has long been a taboo. These paragraphs also paint a wider picture of American society as a whole, about dynamics that aim to "other" minorities and to control female sexuality. This multi-layered approach is also mirrored in the metaphor of the "dream house", which not only refers to the actual house in Bloomington the ex-girlfriend used to live in, but also to "a house that was not a house and a dream that was no dream at all", a (self-)deception with multiple different rooms and scary surroundings (think Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, where the house is also much more than an actual building). To convey her alienation, Machado refers to her abused self of the past as "you", which is a particularly tricky narrative choice, and I've rarely seen an author pull this perspective off so effortlessly and effectfully.
All in all, I liked this much better than Her Body and Other Parties (which I already found rather impressive), and once I started reading, I couldn't put it down. Some parts were slightly too fragmented for my taste, but this memoir is a real achievement and deserves all the praise it currently gets.
I did an interview with Machado, and you can listen to my radio piece, the podcast review (both with text in German) and the whole interview (in English, but for Steady members).
In this intimate, formally experimental memoir, Machado recalls how she survived an abusive relationship, but gives her own experiences a wider context: As she illustrates by giving examples from real life, art and scientific texts, violence in lesbian relationships has rarely been acknowledged and discussed, thus rendering the victims almost invisible and making them even more vulnerable. With "In the Dream House", Machado wants to add to the archive of stories about the human experience, turning the phenomenon of abuse between queer women into a topic to be considered, to be pondered. To talk about queer people as abusers is in fact, Machado states, an act of liberation: "We deserve to have our wrongdoing represented as much as our heroism, because when we refuse wrongdoing as a possibility for a group of people, we refuse their humanity."
Machado met her unnamed ex-girlfriend when she was studying for an MFA in Iowa, and with time, "the woman in the dream house" became more and more controlling, passive-aggressive and also physically violent, gaslighting Machado, insulting and diminishing her and playing with her insecurities, until Machado finally found the strength to exit the relationship that had become a prison. The mechanisms Machado depicts will probably be recognizable for many people, but I have to admit that before the author pointed it out to me, I hadn't actively thought about the fact that there are hardly any texts that talk about abuse in a queer context, which means that queer people in these situations do not find themselves represented in (real and fictional) stories and are thus deprived of a language to express what they are experiencing. And although Machado explicitly states that it is her goal to change that, the situations and effects she depicts are in many respects universal. Machado is just a fantastic psychological writer with keen sensibilities, and she finds highly evocative words and images to convey her own past.
This main narrative thread is not only split in multiple short chapters, it is also interspersed with flashbacks, scientific research on the topic as well as examples from literature, music, films and real life that support Machado's argument that violence in lesbian relationship has long been a taboo. These paragraphs also paint a wider picture of American society as a whole, about dynamics that aim to "other" minorities and to control female sexuality. This multi-layered approach is also mirrored in the metaphor of the "dream house", which not only refers to the actual house in Bloomington the ex-girlfriend used to live in, but also to "a house that was not a house and a dream that was no dream at all", a (self-)deception with multiple different rooms and scary surroundings (think Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, where the house is also much more than an actual building). To convey her alienation, Machado refers to her abused self of the past as "you", which is a particularly tricky narrative choice, and I've rarely seen an author pull this perspective off so effortlessly and effectfully.
All in all, I liked this much better than Her Body and Other Parties (which I already found rather impressive), and once I started reading, I couldn't put it down. Some parts were slightly too fragmented for my taste, but this memoir is a real achievement and deserves all the praise it currently gets.
I did an interview with Machado, and you can listen to my radio piece, the podcast review (both with text in German) and the whole interview (in English, but for Steady members).
April 17, 2023
In the dream house. In the beginning I thought it’d be good. In the first couple of chapters I was like okay. In almost every chapter the writer wanted us to know how smart she was, how hurt she was. In every situation she was a victim. In her parents house, on a beach. In Iowa. In grad school. In her relationship she never used her voice but she made sure to write a book so that her story would be heard. In the book she starts a lot of chapters with the word IN. In that way she lets us know how a smart person writes a book. In academia that is how they write books. In the end this book felt like someone who lived such a great life that even her memoir felt like a thing of privilege. In all her writing shops, in all her great friendships, in all her happiness, this one relationship was the worst thing in her life. In the end I didn’t care.
April 6, 2020
This was absolutely incredible. Just, wow.
January 2, 2022
The synopsis of In the Dream House sounded promising to me — so promising that I put the book on my Christmas wish-list. Grave mistake.
Let me add in a little disclaimer: I understand the importance of Machado’s story. What she went through is horrifying and concerns a topic that is, as she frequently states, not talked about enough. This book is a memoir, and is not fictional — therefore my rating has nothing to do with Machado’s experience.
In the Dream House is a memoir that centers around Machado’s experience in an abusive queer relationship. Throughout the book she distributes history lessons on queer abuse, summaries of novels/folktales/plays/movies/TV shows/music videos, and footnotes that aim to connect her story to typical literary devices and cliches in folktales.
”Queerness has an especially vexed relationship to evidence.”
The first thing that irks me about this book is its second person point of view. Perspective is often carefully chosen, as each sort adds its own flair to a story: second person perspective breaks the fourth wall in a reading experience. In the case of In the Dream House, though, it is almost as if extra walls are being built. Machado tries to make her story feel more personal by addressing the reader directly, but it is oftentimes unclear whether she wants to make the reader feel like the protagonist, or whether she wants it to seem like she is speaking to herself. If her goal is the former, I could not put myself on the protagonist pedestal because I could not relate to Machado. If it is the latter, I felt like an intruder. Both possibilities shut the reader out.
More irritation stemmed from the rocky way the separate chapters are sequenced. There is almost no flow to the story. In moments when I became invested in what Machado had to say, I was pulled right out by one or more chapters that consist of long and boring summaries of films or TV shows that the author has watched: “Reader, do you remember that ridiculous movie Volcano, the one with Tommy Lee Jones?” I would care if she had cleverly connected scenes or interpretations to her own experience, as that would have turned the media into something contextual, but that did not happen. I was confused. It’s like she needed to reach a specific word count. In this video (12.45-14.47), Machado states that her editor sequenced almost all of the text: “That’s why it’s great to have an editor.”
The ‘Dream House as [insert prompt]’ chapter names do not work for me either. Most of the time, they make little to no sense. The writing itself is inconsistent and contributes to the disjointed narrative. It sometimes tries to be lyrical while it really borders on pretension (“I speak into the silence. I toss the stone of my story into a vast crevice; measure the emptiness by its small sound.” — “The truth is, there is no better place to live than in the shadow of a beautiful, furious mountain.”) Also, Machado is a bit heavy-handed on the random swear words (c**t seems to be her favourite, help).
In the Dream House is heavily footnoted. A lot of the time, it is difficult to grasp what the point of these footnotes is. All they do is snap the reader out of their trance. Some of them are so long that they could just as well have been made a part of the primary text.
The book aims to be intimate, as most memoirs do, but random graphic sex scenes are not the only way to achieve this. It’s just not enough.
Why do almost all of the footnotes refer to folktales when the author so often compares her story to gothic stories and haunted houses? What’s with the copy-pasting of whole paragraphs of text from Alice in Wonderland? Why would anyone add in choose-your-own-adventure chapters when that is so irrelevant and ill-fitting to the context of a memoir?
One star for In the Dream House, one extra star for the author’s bravery.
Let me add in a little disclaimer: I understand the importance of Machado’s story. What she went through is horrifying and concerns a topic that is, as she frequently states, not talked about enough. This book is a memoir, and is not fictional — therefore my rating has nothing to do with Machado’s experience.
In the Dream House is a memoir that centers around Machado’s experience in an abusive queer relationship. Throughout the book she distributes history lessons on queer abuse, summaries of novels/folktales/plays/movies/TV shows/music videos, and footnotes that aim to connect her story to typical literary devices and cliches in folktales.
”Queerness has an especially vexed relationship to evidence.”
The first thing that irks me about this book is its second person point of view. Perspective is often carefully chosen, as each sort adds its own flair to a story: second person perspective breaks the fourth wall in a reading experience. In the case of In the Dream House, though, it is almost as if extra walls are being built. Machado tries to make her story feel more personal by addressing the reader directly, but it is oftentimes unclear whether she wants to make the reader feel like the protagonist, or whether she wants it to seem like she is speaking to herself. If her goal is the former, I could not put myself on the protagonist pedestal because I could not relate to Machado. If it is the latter, I felt like an intruder. Both possibilities shut the reader out.
More irritation stemmed from the rocky way the separate chapters are sequenced. There is almost no flow to the story. In moments when I became invested in what Machado had to say, I was pulled right out by one or more chapters that consist of long and boring summaries of films or TV shows that the author has watched: “Reader, do you remember that ridiculous movie Volcano, the one with Tommy Lee Jones?” I would care if she had cleverly connected scenes or interpretations to her own experience, as that would have turned the media into something contextual, but that did not happen. I was confused. It’s like she needed to reach a specific word count. In this video (12.45-14.47), Machado states that her editor sequenced almost all of the text: “That’s why it’s great to have an editor.”
The ‘Dream House as [insert prompt]’ chapter names do not work for me either. Most of the time, they make little to no sense. The writing itself is inconsistent and contributes to the disjointed narrative. It sometimes tries to be lyrical while it really borders on pretension (“I speak into the silence. I toss the stone of my story into a vast crevice; measure the emptiness by its small sound.” — “The truth is, there is no better place to live than in the shadow of a beautiful, furious mountain.”) Also, Machado is a bit heavy-handed on the random swear words (c**t seems to be her favourite, help).
In the Dream House is heavily footnoted. A lot of the time, it is difficult to grasp what the point of these footnotes is. All they do is snap the reader out of their trance. Some of them are so long that they could just as well have been made a part of the primary text.
The book aims to be intimate, as most memoirs do, but random graphic sex scenes are not the only way to achieve this. It’s just not enough.
Why do almost all of the footnotes refer to folktales when the author so often compares her story to gothic stories and haunted houses? What’s with the copy-pasting of whole paragraphs of text from Alice in Wonderland? Why would anyone add in choose-your-own-adventure chapters when that is so irrelevant and ill-fitting to the context of a memoir?
One star for In the Dream House, one extra star for the author’s bravery.
December 29, 2020
What a hell of a memoir...I have never read anything like this in my life. This book tore me up. I mean I was sobbing in some sections, but it was such an important read and one I didn't even realize I needed. Trigger warnings for strong language, abuse, manipulation, homophobia, slight abuse of power dynamic from authority figure
I thought I had my top books of 2020 figured out, but then I was gifted this book by Bethany and this is definitely one of the best books that I put my hands on in 2020. In the Dream House isn't one of those books that you fly through. It's one where it's beyond necessary to take your time. Done in a unique and poetic style, this book focuses on Machado's experience of abuse in a queer relationship. While I have experience abuse at the hands of a partner, it was through the lens of a heterosexual relationship. Machado clearly and effectively points out how her intersectionality of gender, sexuality, and race/ethnicity put her in a position to investiage why more reports of queer relationship abuse had not been documented. The discussion was hard to read at times especially those times in which readers come across the lack of information there is related to abuse and queer relationships and the ways in which people express disbelief. The sheer idea that someone would justify abuse because they don't think it could possibly happen between two women is absolutely appalling. But by highlighting even this small fact, Machado points out how society even defines abuse. Most times we hear the word abuse and think physical without taking into account the emotional, mental, and even financial abuse that can exist in a relationship. When these things aren't acknowledged we leave out an entire group of individuals that experience different forms of abuse from others.
If I was able to point out one of the most emotionally challenge aspects of this book for me, it would definitely have to be Machado's use of 2nd person. While I know that this was utilized to illustrate the relationship that "current" Machado has with the Machado that was in the abusive relationship, it made certain parts of the book hit harder. While I don't necessarily talk explicitly about my abusive partnership, Machado made me reckon with my past when she used "you." I feel like I understood so much about the progression of the abuse the ultimate climax, but I couldn't read those scenes without remembering my own experience watching my partner become slowly change from a man I loved into an abusive monster. Hence, all the crying I did while reading this book. Additionally, this book is written in a such a unique way that I won't even detail for fear of spoilers. I've never a fiction or non-fiction novel done is such an experimental manner.
This book will stick with me for the rest of my life. I'm not sure when I'll be able to read it again, but this one hit me in the chest in ways that I didn't expect. It challenged my way of thinking and it challenged me to check in on where I am in my own healing process. While I know that this is about abuse as it exists in queer relationships, I can't help to thank Machado for writing this book. It's meant a lot more to me than I expected.
I thought I had my top books of 2020 figured out, but then I was gifted this book by Bethany and this is definitely one of the best books that I put my hands on in 2020. In the Dream House isn't one of those books that you fly through. It's one where it's beyond necessary to take your time. Done in a unique and poetic style, this book focuses on Machado's experience of abuse in a queer relationship. While I have experience abuse at the hands of a partner, it was through the lens of a heterosexual relationship. Machado clearly and effectively points out how her intersectionality of gender, sexuality, and race/ethnicity put her in a position to investiage why more reports of queer relationship abuse had not been documented. The discussion was hard to read at times especially those times in which readers come across the lack of information there is related to abuse and queer relationships and the ways in which people express disbelief. The sheer idea that someone would justify abuse because they don't think it could possibly happen between two women is absolutely appalling. But by highlighting even this small fact, Machado points out how society even defines abuse. Most times we hear the word abuse and think physical without taking into account the emotional, mental, and even financial abuse that can exist in a relationship. When these things aren't acknowledged we leave out an entire group of individuals that experience different forms of abuse from others.
If I was able to point out one of the most emotionally challenge aspects of this book for me, it would definitely have to be Machado's use of 2nd person. While I know that this was utilized to illustrate the relationship that "current" Machado has with the Machado that was in the abusive relationship, it made certain parts of the book hit harder. While I don't necessarily talk explicitly about my abusive partnership, Machado made me reckon with my past when she used "you." I feel like I understood so much about the progression of the abuse the ultimate climax, but I couldn't read those scenes without remembering my own experience watching my partner become slowly change from a man I loved into an abusive monster. Hence, all the crying I did while reading this book. Additionally, this book is written in a such a unique way that I won't even detail for fear of spoilers. I've never a fiction or non-fiction novel done is such an experimental manner.
This book will stick with me for the rest of my life. I'm not sure when I'll be able to read it again, but this one hit me in the chest in ways that I didn't expect. It challenged my way of thinking and it challenged me to check in on where I am in my own healing process. While I know that this is about abuse as it exists in queer relationships, I can't help to thank Machado for writing this book. It's meant a lot more to me than I expected.
January 7, 2021
“Love cannot be won or lost; a relationship doesn't have a scoring system. We are partners, paired against the world. We cannot succeed if we are at odds with each other.”
People kept telling me, basically shouting at me (in the nicest way possible) to pick up this book and read it. They said it was outstanding. They were right. I read this book in under 24 hours because once I started, I was unable to stop thinking about it.
I don't tend to read memoirs and I've only developed an interest in nonfiction over the last year or so. Oh, and I mainly read YA. But truth be told, I didn't even know this was a memoir. I thought it was some type of haunted house short story collection and to be fair, I wasn't entirely wrong. In the Dream House reads like a novel. Like a sharp, intelligent, complex, haunting, addictive novel infused with queer history and activism. You tell yourself that this cannot be real, knowing full well it can. It is. Abuse is not limited to heteronormative relationships. Queer relationships experience abuse but because queerness and the fragile and hard-won rights that come with it are constantly threatened and scrutinised by a society that hates LGBTQIA+ folks, we have even more reasons to be afraid of speaking out. Which makes this book in particular so much more important.
I admire Carmen Maria Machado. Her writing is mesmerising, and as much as I wanted to stop reading at times, I couldn't. There were a number of moments when I felt so seen, when I understood things about myself that I'd never thought out loud. I couldn't recommend this book any higher and it instantly became on of my all time favourites. I need to pick up Her Body and Other Parties ASAP.
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People kept telling me, basically shouting at me (in the nicest way possible) to pick up this book and read it. They said it was outstanding. They were right. I read this book in under 24 hours because once I started, I was unable to stop thinking about it.
I don't tend to read memoirs and I've only developed an interest in nonfiction over the last year or so. Oh, and I mainly read YA. But truth be told, I didn't even know this was a memoir. I thought it was some type of haunted house short story collection and to be fair, I wasn't entirely wrong. In the Dream House reads like a novel. Like a sharp, intelligent, complex, haunting, addictive novel infused with queer history and activism. You tell yourself that this cannot be real, knowing full well it can. It is. Abuse is not limited to heteronormative relationships. Queer relationships experience abuse but because queerness and the fragile and hard-won rights that come with it are constantly threatened and scrutinised by a society that hates LGBTQIA+ folks, we have even more reasons to be afraid of speaking out. Which makes this book in particular so much more important.
I admire Carmen Maria Machado. Her writing is mesmerising, and as much as I wanted to stop reading at times, I couldn't. There were a number of moments when I felt so seen, when I understood things about myself that I'd never thought out loud. I couldn't recommend this book any higher and it instantly became on of my all time favourites. I need to pick up Her Body and Other Parties ASAP.
Find more of my books on Instagram
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