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A review by alaskanbullbookworm
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
“one day, she asks ‘who knows about us?’ It becomes a refrain. It’s strange — in some past generation this could have meant so many things. Who knows we’re together? Who knows we’re lovers? Who knows we’re queer? But when she asks, the unspoken reason is awful, deflated of nobility or romance: Who knows that I yell at you like this?’”
nothing I could say about such a poetic, folkloric memoir that would do it justice; it really pushes the boundaries of the genre. I loved the use of a somewhat back-and-forth point of view that distances the author from herself as she confronts a painful period of her life and relegates herself to the role of an observer of her abuse as well as the broken-up chapters that compartmentalize the breakdown of her relationship. the overarching metaphor of the dream house, that was not a dream house, provided a crucial look at the complex and ignored reality of abusive queer relationships.
Machado contextualizes her abuse not only within queer history but also … as something that just happens. people hurt each other.
“…when we die, our bodies feed the hungry earth are cells, becoming part of other cells, and in the world of the living, where we used to be, people, kiss, and hold hands and fall in love, and fuck and laugh and cry and her others and nurse broken hearts and start wars and pull sleeping children out of car seats and shout at each other”
she describes that although you want to believe your pain is unique, it is not — no matter how undocumented. and through this memoir Machado does powerfully document her experience to give a voice to her and others’ pain. this was so well done + i know I’ll be thinking about it for awhile!!!
nothing I could say about such a poetic, folkloric memoir that would do it justice; it really pushes the boundaries of the genre. I loved the use of a somewhat back-and-forth point of view that distances the author from herself as she confronts a painful period of her life and relegates herself to the role of an observer of her abuse as well as the broken-up chapters that compartmentalize the breakdown of her relationship. the overarching metaphor of the dream house, that was not a dream house, provided a crucial look at the complex and ignored reality of abusive queer relationships.
Machado contextualizes her abuse not only within queer history but also … as something that just happens. people hurt each other.
“…when we die, our bodies feed the hungry earth are cells, becoming part of other cells, and in the world of the living, where we used to be, people, kiss, and hold hands and fall in love, and fuck and laugh and cry and her others and nurse broken hearts and start wars and pull sleeping children out of car seats and shout at each other”
she describes that although you want to believe your pain is unique, it is not — no matter how undocumented. and through this memoir Machado does powerfully document her experience to give a voice to her and others’ pain. this was so well done + i know I’ll be thinking about it for awhile!!!