in the dream house a memoir by carmen maria machado

The details of the terror are (intentionally) amorphous the woman is described as slight and blonde the woman’s house in Bloomington, Indiana, lacks materiality, transformed by the woman’s implausible and uncontrollable rage into a dark, gothic chamber of fear. Machado writes that she has no “language” in which to reconstruct her memory of the haunted dream house. However, the telling is a struggle because an aporia looms large at its center. The lesbian domestic space in Machado’s telling is neither tranquil nor transcendental. In her memoir, Machado contests these notions by foregrounding her own experience of being in an abusive relationship with a woman.

Moreover-and shockingly so-queer love, like its straight counterpart, can engender intimate partner violence. It’s just as fraught and fractured as heterosexual love. This love, according to Machado, has been etherealized into an ideal attainable without “men’s accompanying bullshit.” Yet, as Machado contends, historically, lesbian love is not immune to the oppressive structures of patriarchy. In her 2019 memoir, In the Dream House, Carmen Maria Machado writes not only to ameliorate self-suffering but also to disabuse readers’ notions about lesbian love. Indeed, autobiographical outpourings can have a cathartic effect-of cleansing-on the writer’s soul. “Writing is a way to get rid of shame,” says Karl Ove Knausgaard, reflecting on why he wrote his celebrated 3,600-plus-page-long multivolume memoir, My Struggle. Machado has written an affecting, chilling memoir about domestic abuse. She points out that queer women endure abuse in their relationships just as heterosexual women do, and queer abusers shouldn’t be protected: “We deserve to have our wrongdoing represented.” The author eventually leaves her toxic relationship behind, but scars remain.

Machado interestingly weaves in cultural references (to movies like 1944’s Gaslight and 1984’s Carmen) as she considers portrayals of abuse. The hostile environment turns utterly oppressive, yet Machado stays, becoming further disoriented by someone who inflicts harm one minute and declares her love the next. The girlfriend turns threatening if Machado doesn’t immediately return her calls, starts pointless fights, and inflicts physical discomfort on Machado (squeezing her arm for no reason, for instance). She masterfully, slowly introduces unease and dread as the relationship unfolds.

The book is divided into short, piercing chapters, in which Machado refers to the victimized version of herself as “you.” (“I thought you died, but writing this, I’m not sure you did.”) Machado discusses meeting the girlfriend (her first) in Iowa City, where Machado was getting her MFA. In this haunting memoir, National Book Award–finalist Machado ( Her Body and Other Parties) discusses the mental and physical abuse she was subjected to by her girlfriend.

In the dream house a memoir by carmen maria machado