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A review by heynonnynonnie
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.5
Hated|Disliked|Liked|Loved|Favorited
In the Dream House is a bold and experimental memoir unlike anything that I've read before. But like all things new and experimental, there's a strong element of confusion. What was the author's intent? When did the story begin? Why was this chapter here? What was the importance of this metaphor? Of this citation? Sometimes I sat with a chapter and read it over and over again to try to make sense of its meaning. Now that I'm done with the book, I think the author's intent is much more clear. It's not a linear story. It's a collection of short pieces that circle around and around a subject, a thesis, and only sometimes about an abusive relationship.
The author has a story to tell but has no language for it. She must invent one. The point of the story isn't her abusive relationship, it's that she has no way of framing it. She tries over and over again in each chapter to fit it into various tropes - like holding up a jewel to the light to inspect all its facets. Yet, she finds over and over again that there is no one narrative to tell her story. Every one explains an aspect but ultimately fails to fully contain her story.
We feel that something wrong has happened to her, but there is no law broken. There's no legal case to refer to. There's no piece of writing that explains what happened. No character archetype to fall back on. No narrative to allude to. And so her goal is to imagine an archive, a house, a structure in which her story can live. A place where her story exists among literary devices, allusions, and metaphors that build legitimacy that the story is seeking.
I think it's easy to mistake the sometimes second person tense as a weak attempt to create empathy. But it's not an attempt to blur the boundary between author and reader. It's a necessary disconnect in the text. An "I" author and a "you" victim that Machado switches between. A wall between the person she was and the person she is. A classification for her feelings and thought patterns. An Othering to in order to create the many character archetypes the victim falls into.
The book feels like both the building and the unravelling. It seeks to teach you how to read its text and keeps you away from its core. It's discovering the why of a ghost through the means of a haunted house.
In the Dream House is a bold and experimental memoir unlike anything that I've read before. But like all things new and experimental, there's a strong element of confusion. What was the author's intent? When did the story begin? Why was this chapter here? What was the importance of this metaphor? Of this citation? Sometimes I sat with a chapter and read it over and over again to try to make sense of its meaning. Now that I'm done with the book, I think the author's intent is much more clear. It's not a linear story. It's a collection of short pieces that circle around and around a subject, a thesis, and only sometimes about an abusive relationship.
The author has a story to tell but has no language for it. She must invent one. The point of the story isn't her abusive relationship, it's that she has no way of framing it. She tries over and over again in each chapter to fit it into various tropes - like holding up a jewel to the light to inspect all its facets. Yet, she finds over and over again that there is no one narrative to tell her story. Every one explains an aspect but ultimately fails to fully contain her story.
We feel that something wrong has happened to her, but there is no law broken. There's no legal case to refer to. There's no piece of writing that explains what happened. No character archetype to fall back on. No narrative to allude to. And so her goal is to imagine an archive, a house, a structure in which her story can live. A place where her story exists among literary devices, allusions, and metaphors that build legitimacy that the story is seeking.
I think it's easy to mistake the sometimes second person tense as a weak attempt to create empathy. But it's not an attempt to blur the boundary between author and reader. It's a necessary disconnect in the text. An "I" author and a "you" victim that Machado switches between. A wall between the person she was and the person she is. A classification for her feelings and thought patterns. An Othering to in order to create the many character archetypes the victim falls into.
The book feels like both the building and the unravelling. It seeks to teach you how to read its text and keeps you away from its core. It's discovering the why of a ghost through the means of a haunted house.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gaslighting, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, and Domestic abuse
Moderate: Infidelity
Minor: Sexual harassment, Drug use, Lesbophobia, and Alcoholism