In the Dream House: A Memoir

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.

I only recently re-entered the world of female non-fiction (not necessarily feminist, but female authors writing on subjects related to female living), and am reading this work as a part of a "book club," if you will. This review is not about Machado's experience, which is actually quite universal to all abusive relationships (to which I have great empathy), but to the book itself.The book follows, very generally, Machado's foray into an abusive relationship that happens to be a queer one (she being, from my understanding of the work, bisexual and her partner a maybe-polyamorous lesbian? A better description is her lover is presented as someone with a severe personality disorder that manifested itself onto Machado and transcends sexuality). The experience is given in a series of vignettes, intermixed with other vignettes on subject matters such as the art of vignettes/short stories/fables and academic-esque musings on lesbian culture. I get that it is hard to write about difficult personal things, so short form might be easier because of the "quick-in-quick-out", but it makes the story disjointed. There is an underlying current of mental dismantling though, so maybe the argument for this structure is to mirror this precipitous state.The book references that during this time Machado was finishing her MFA, and her work was not great. It would have been interesting to hear more about her work and day-to-day in her graduate program rather than just snapshots of social interactions with others versus social interactions with her partner. She only lightly touches on the bleeding edge of abuse.There is also something to be said though, about professional/academic writers writing about their states during writing. It can be incredibly boring for an average reader who is has a life more tethered to reality rather than academia. So maybe that is another thought on this...The book generally brought me back to my undergrad days hanging out at Bluestockings, when I had the time to really look and reflect on my chosen relationships rather than the socio-economic ties and required obligations that drive me now (mortgage, children, etc.). If you find this type of self-exploration and reflection indulgent or even narcissistic this book is not for you. If you have the capacity to read a very academically written queer relationship and general abuse story, then the book is worthwhile.

I was absolutely beside myself when I finished this. What an incredibly up-close look at emotional abuse. You can tell that the author really dug into her past - her strengths, weaknesses, insecurities - to offer us this raw and vulnerable look at some of the darkest parts of humanity. This is juxtaposed with lyrical writing and commentary that took my breath away. I highlighted so much of this book, and think about it often. Beautiful story through and through.

The author leads the reader with style and wit to read a horrific story. Sly, subtle style like The Woman in the Dream House.

this book was good, the titles of each chapter were interesting. I like that the chapters were super short, it made the book really easily digestible.

llegó rápido y en perfectas condiciones!! muy buen libro

I have so many pages in this book dog-eared, I’ve had to use the top and bottom corners of some pages to mark both sides. And I’m not usually one to dog-ear books.“In the Dream House” happened to be released just around the time my queer relationship was becoming egregiously verbally and emotionally abusive for the first (and, while prolonged, still thankfully last) time.Reading Carmen Maria Machado’s experiences of abuse in a queer relationship was one of the things that helped me believe my own perceptions about what was happening to me, despite being gaslighted, and despite desperately wanting to believe the woman I’d loved couldn’t possibly be abusing me; that I couldn’t possibly be allowing her to stay in my life while she abused me. Lies my ex-partner had a vested interest in buying into and reinforcing.Without “In the Dream House” to contrast my experiences against and parallel them with, I would have had an even harder time believing and validating to myself that, yes, she was abusing me.Without “In the Dream House”, it would have taken me even longer to leave.Thank you, Carmen Maria Machado, for writing so painfully beautifully and so honestly about your own experiences of abuse and choosing to share them to help other queer intimate abuse survivors.I did need this book. I don’t have the words to say how grateful I am for it. Thank you.

Um dos melhores livros escritos na humanidade.

On telling a colleague that I'd loved Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts, he recommended that I read this book. It's a tough read in places, due to the subject matter, but the story is told in such a creative way that it holds your attention even through its most challenging moments. A powerful and important book that will no doubt stay with me for quite some time.

Ça faisait longtemps qu’un livre ne me fasse ressentir autant d’émotions. Écrit dans un format très original, vous allez déborder ce livre en une journée. Carmen Maria Machado est sans doute l’une des meilleures écrivaines contemporaines. Je vous recommande à 100% !