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A review by billie_visible
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
4.0
In heart-rending prose and roiling verses Machado spells her story, reminding us of the experiences untold in the LGBTQIA+ community and recalling how it all went wrong for her. It’s a harrowing and remarkably awful tale, one that will reek of painful remembrance to survivors, and speaks to a deep and pervasive secret lurking in the LGBTQIA community: queer partner abuse, which encompasses physical, emotional, sexual, and verbal assault at rates often ignored by mainstream media.
The Dream House itself represents both a metaphorical place and an emotional state of being. Within its confines, Machado finds herself uneasily trapped in a daze, a clusterfuck of corridors forever rearranged like an MC Escher print. Gaslighting, sobering apologies, lamentable self-esteem, and isolation from her friends and family – it's the hallmark compositional maze of abusive ruin. The flow of the book is structured to mirror the rampaging emotions and thoughts that encompass such a foreboding tale, sometimes spiraling off into wistful thoughts, sometimes thumping forward into horrific anger as the claustrophobic walls of The Dream House close in. It's an oppressive and nightmarish read as painful as it is important.
More than that it's a stunning recollection that managed to both break me apart, then pull me back together again as I cried for Machado in solidarity, in knowing, in disbelief, in anger, in frustration, and happiness: the very epitome of what queer communion and sharing our stories is about.
The Dream House itself represents both a metaphorical place and an emotional state of being. Within its confines, Machado finds herself uneasily trapped in a daze, a clusterfuck of corridors forever rearranged like an MC Escher print. Gaslighting, sobering apologies, lamentable self-esteem, and isolation from her friends and family – it's the hallmark compositional maze of abusive ruin. The flow of the book is structured to mirror the rampaging emotions and thoughts that encompass such a foreboding tale, sometimes spiraling off into wistful thoughts, sometimes thumping forward into horrific anger as the claustrophobic walls of The Dream House close in. It's an oppressive and nightmarish read as painful as it is important.
More than that it's a stunning recollection that managed to both break me apart, then pull me back together again as I cried for Machado in solidarity, in knowing, in disbelief, in anger, in frustration, and happiness: the very epitome of what queer communion and sharing our stories is about.