![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Review: Carmen Maria Machado - In the Dream House (2019)
This was a memoir about the author’s abusive relationship. It was written in a way that pulled in references from stories, history, etc. to mirror her own experience. The chapters are very short and so this was a fairly quick read. I would recommend this book as a well-written memoir.
Spoilers.
Story
This was the story about the author, Carmen Maria Machado, and their relationship with their abusive lover. The author is referred to with both first and second person pronouns, while the girlfriend is only referred to as the woman in the dream house. Machado recalled their first meeting, falling in love, making things work in their long-distance relationship, the deteriorating and spiraling of the relationship, the struggle to depart, the actual departure, and their life afterward.
While the story was presented in a fairly simple way, Machado would meander by focusing on various aspects of emotions, queerness, and queer history, and how they related to her own experience. Sometimes they would be academic in nature, citing papers or moments in history. Sometimes they would be related more to pop culture, referencing movies, TV shows and books. And sometimes they were would be other observations that Machado had made, stories from her younger life. Because of the wide array of experiences and stories she pulled from, this felt like a very full story. These were the stories that were fleshed out, while it was her abusive relationship that was told in vaguer terms, it was the relationship that is now the dream.
Writing
The writing was really interesting and really kept me in the book. As I mentioned, the chapters were very short, and that afforded Machado the opportunity to include different writing styles. The one that struck me the most was the choose your own adventure chapter. It was interesting, but it also showed us how from Machado’s eyes, it felt like there was no way out. All roads led to the same conclusion.
I covered this a bit in the section above, but the use of first and second person, and other techniques as well, made Machado’s experiences with their abusive partner feel more like the dream, the distant memory that now was only that. It felt like Machado was able to write this book having some distance with that experience, and it was because of that that I read this book feeling hopeful that Machado was now in a better place.
I also appreciate the care that Machado does in fleshing out the other parts of the book too. She’s a great storyteller when it comes to telling us about queer history, or episodes of Star Trek, etc. She is really good at emphasizing the part that relates to her experience, and that’s why this book feels so complete.
Characters
The two main characters of this book are Carmen Maria Machado and the woman in the dream house.
At the beginning, Machado struck me as a woman who was a little insecure. Partially about her appearance, partially about her lack of experience. I got the impression that she felt that the woman in the dream house was a gift, someone who was too good for her. At first, the woman in the dream house was very charming, and Machado probably did feel that she was in a dream, a fantasy with her.
The big turning point was the woman moving into the dream house in Bloomington. That was when Machado basically tossed her hat in with the woman in the dream house, when they made things official, when Machado signalled to her that she loved her enough to drive all the way from Iowa to Bloomington.
But that’s when things start to change, when we start to see the cracks. On occasion, the woman in the dream house would say some things that would take Machado by surprise. She would ask Machado if she was thinking of someone else during sex, Machado would notice their arguments more.
As an outsider, we see the ways that the woman in the dream house shows her true self that would have been a signal to leave. The woman in the dream house is inconsiderate of Machado, is demanding of her, is distrusting of her, twists her words to sound bad. But to Machado at the time, she had already committed to being with the woman in the dream house, and so for her, they probably seemed more like things she had to learn to handle.
The abuse really escalated to a point where it was somewhat incredible, hard to believe. The woman in the dream house would straight up tell Machado that she hated her, that she had always hated her. Is that something you say to someone you claim to love? The woman in the dream house would also be violent, she would throw things, she would chase Machado through the house to the point that Machado would have to hide in the locked washroom. And then the woman in the dream house would forget that it happened.
The woman in the dream house would fake-break up with Machado, but it kind of prepared her for the real thing. Thankfully, Machado had attentive roommates who knew that her relationship was alright. They did not get involved in Machado’s relationship, but they were there when she wanted help, and they helped her when it finally happened, when the woman in the dream house broke up with Machado. Because Machado would not have been the one to initiate it. She didn’t even know it was a choice.
Thankfully, by the time the woman in the dream house started to want to get back together with Machado, she had already exorcised her out of her system, and was on her way to recovery.
In a way, the woman in the dream house was the most ‘developed character,’ if you could call her that. These are all real people, these aren’t characters. But I am reading this as a story and that is why they are characters to me. And as I mentioned, this book seemed to write at a distance with the woman in the dream house. I didn’t feel like this story was written in the present, but rather from a Machado far in the future, and I think that was why it felt like Machado went through less change than she would have in real life.
At the same time, I think the seeming lack of change in the narrator’s character is because Machado remains herself before and after the experience. She has just found her way to process what has happened to her. In this case, that involves using other media and references to process her own feelings.
Though all characters other than Machado and the woman in the dream house are fairly minor, I do think Val deserves a mention. Val was Machado’s plot twist. They’d met because Val was in a relationship with the woman in the dream house when the woman in the dream house met and fell in love with Machado. The woman in the dream house broke up with Val to be with Machado. And later on, Machado broke up with Val to be with a new girlfriend, Amber.
Machado and Val began to talk as they shared something in common. Machado mentioned how it was hard telling people about her abuse because she had no proof. But at least Val would believe her. Machado had told Val that she couldn’t believe Val had agreed to an open relationship with the woman in the dream house. It was during that conversation that the women discovered that (probably) the woman in the dream house had lied to Machado about being in an open relationship, and only asked Val to be in an open relationship after the woman in the dream house had fallen in love, kissed, and had sex with Machado. That would line up with our impression of the woman in the dream house, as Machado’s friends had told her about the woman walking around Iowa with another woman, when they had not really broken up yet.
It's hard to consider the ‘characters’ in this book as actual characters because they are people, but more so because they feel more like experiences. Machado ‘overcame’ the woman in the dream house. Machado was not a character who grew, she was a person who overcame.
Themes
Dream
Machado’s romance with the woman in the dream house was a dream at first. She had come in and swept Machado off of her feet. But their romance turned into a dream in the sense that it felt like abuse was happening to Machado and she had little power to control it, much like how we often operate in dreams without really having control.
I also mentioned how the novel was written like a dream. The chapters were very short, reminiscent of how dreams will jump from scene to scene without much logic. The use of first and second pronouns also added to that hazy atmosphere, and put a distance between the narrator and the events.
House
The concept of houses was a big theme in this book that I felt was very deeply explored. The house in Bloomington, Indiana represented the relationship between Machado and the woman in the dream house. It was after the woman moved in that they decided they would be exclusive. That was when Machado decided that the woman was it, that they’d be together forever, have kids together, etc. Machado would drive for hours from Iowa to Indiana just to visit the woman in the dream house.
Houses often represent safety and stability, but to Machado, this is not the case. She mentioned how houses are safe in the way that people in Vegas say that the house always wins – that line really struck me. The house is only safe for the one who owns the house. This was the house of the woman in the dream house. This was not Machado. This reminded of Machado of fa childhood experience, in which she had gotten into a fight with her parents and had locked herself in her room. Her parents had removed the doorknob, which signalled to Machado that this room was not hers, she was just borrowing a room in the house that ultimately belonged to her parents. So the idea of the house was never safe to Machado. Deep down inside, she perhaps recognized that.
Machado also explored the theme of houses in gothic novels. In gothic novels, the houses are often one of the horrors, and in the abusive relationship, this seemed to become a reality for Machado.
Queerness
Queerness was of course a huge topic that was covered by Machado and I will in no way be able to speak to it in full, but I will point out some of the things that I remember.
Queer people have been fighting for equal rights in relationships forever. So there’s a bit of shame that comes with admitting that one is in a queer relationship that is abusive. It feels like they’re reflecting poorly on the community, and that will give the authorities another reason to deny them basic relationship rights. Machado had brought up a case in which a queer woman was being put on trial for abuse of their lover. It was the one queer person on the jury who had to be convinced of a guilty verdict, because they didn’t want to convict a queer woman. But Machado pointed out that the victim was also a queer woman. Another example was that the first queer couple who had gotten married in a certain American state (I forget which state) had gotten divorced just after five years. There’s a pressure on queer couples to be a perfect example of a happy couple, so that the authorities won’t take away their rights.
There was a short chapter towards the beginning of the novel that described how queerness was often associated with evil in earlier media. Disney villains like Ursula or Cruella de Ville were heavily queer coded. And so when queer people in Machado’s life acted like those characters, she might have overlooked their poor personality traits. I don’t want to take this correlation literally, because I do understand that queerness is not evil. Rather, I think I would portray it as the fact that one may overlook bad traits because they connect with the relatable traits, and sometimes that is because those bad traits are often closely tied with those exact relatable traits in pop culture. There was also a deep dive into the move Stranger by the Lake, in which a queer character was defending their lover who they knew to be a murderer. Why did they do that? Was it because they so desperately wanted to protected another queer man? Again, it’s complex. And I think it’s something that non-queer people can relate to as well, the idea that you may overlook someone’s bad traits because you love them so much.
Abuse
There were some chapters that outlined abuse among lesbian couples. Women were not seen as aggressors for much of culture, so courts never even considered women as possible abusers. Not even when women would kill their lovers. There was no language for abuse among lesbian couples then, and in Machado’s own story, she too struggled to find a way to define what she was feeling with the woman in the dream house. The way she was feeling hurt, the way she didn’t understand that it was abuse.
Later in the book, after she had broken up with the woman in the dream house, Machado struggled with convincing others that it happened. She had no bruises, no physical evidence to show that she was hurt. And it meant a lot to her when even just one person told her that she believed her. Because to suffer this much, to have this much fear and panic from just one person, and not be believed, is a very scary feeling.
Overall
I really appreciated this book. I appreciated this author for being brave enough to share such a traumatic experience for me. But I also really appreciated this book for how it was written. It was written simply and in a way that was very digestible, and yet it covered so much. Like I said, it felt so complete, because Machado was pulling in so many experiences to shape and explain to us the entirety of what she was feeling.
Spoilers.
Story
This was the story about the author, Carmen Maria Machado, and their relationship with their abusive lover. The author is referred to with both first and second person pronouns, while the girlfriend is only referred to as the woman in the dream house. Machado recalled their first meeting, falling in love, making things work in their long-distance relationship, the deteriorating and spiraling of the relationship, the struggle to depart, the actual departure, and their life afterward.
While the story was presented in a fairly simple way, Machado would meander by focusing on various aspects of emotions, queerness, and queer history, and how they related to her own experience. Sometimes they would be academic in nature, citing papers or moments in history. Sometimes they would be related more to pop culture, referencing movies, TV shows and books. And sometimes they were would be other observations that Machado had made, stories from her younger life. Because of the wide array of experiences and stories she pulled from, this felt like a very full story. These were the stories that were fleshed out, while it was her abusive relationship that was told in vaguer terms, it was the relationship that is now the dream.
Writing
The writing was really interesting and really kept me in the book. As I mentioned, the chapters were very short, and that afforded Machado the opportunity to include different writing styles. The one that struck me the most was the choose your own adventure chapter. It was interesting, but it also showed us how from Machado’s eyes, it felt like there was no way out. All roads led to the same conclusion.
I covered this a bit in the section above, but the use of first and second person, and other techniques as well, made Machado’s experiences with their abusive partner feel more like the dream, the distant memory that now was only that. It felt like Machado was able to write this book having some distance with that experience, and it was because of that that I read this book feeling hopeful that Machado was now in a better place.
I also appreciate the care that Machado does in fleshing out the other parts of the book too. She’s a great storyteller when it comes to telling us about queer history, or episodes of Star Trek, etc. She is really good at emphasizing the part that relates to her experience, and that’s why this book feels so complete.
Characters
The two main characters of this book are Carmen Maria Machado and the woman in the dream house.
At the beginning, Machado struck me as a woman who was a little insecure. Partially about her appearance, partially about her lack of experience. I got the impression that she felt that the woman in the dream house was a gift, someone who was too good for her. At first, the woman in the dream house was very charming, and Machado probably did feel that she was in a dream, a fantasy with her.
The big turning point was the woman moving into the dream house in Bloomington. That was when Machado basically tossed her hat in with the woman in the dream house, when they made things official, when Machado signalled to her that she loved her enough to drive all the way from Iowa to Bloomington.
But that’s when things start to change, when we start to see the cracks. On occasion, the woman in the dream house would say some things that would take Machado by surprise. She would ask Machado if she was thinking of someone else during sex, Machado would notice their arguments more.
As an outsider, we see the ways that the woman in the dream house shows her true self that would have been a signal to leave. The woman in the dream house is inconsiderate of Machado, is demanding of her, is distrusting of her, twists her words to sound bad. But to Machado at the time, she had already committed to being with the woman in the dream house, and so for her, they probably seemed more like things she had to learn to handle.
The abuse really escalated to a point where it was somewhat incredible, hard to believe. The woman in the dream house would straight up tell Machado that she hated her, that she had always hated her. Is that something you say to someone you claim to love? The woman in the dream house would also be violent, she would throw things, she would chase Machado through the house to the point that Machado would have to hide in the locked washroom. And then the woman in the dream house would forget that it happened.
The woman in the dream house would fake-break up with Machado, but it kind of prepared her for the real thing. Thankfully, Machado had attentive roommates who knew that her relationship was alright. They did not get involved in Machado’s relationship, but they were there when she wanted help, and they helped her when it finally happened, when the woman in the dream house broke up with Machado. Because Machado would not have been the one to initiate it. She didn’t even know it was a choice.
Thankfully, by the time the woman in the dream house started to want to get back together with Machado, she had already exorcised her out of her system, and was on her way to recovery.
In a way, the woman in the dream house was the most ‘developed character,’ if you could call her that. These are all real people, these aren’t characters. But I am reading this as a story and that is why they are characters to me. And as I mentioned, this book seemed to write at a distance with the woman in the dream house. I didn’t feel like this story was written in the present, but rather from a Machado far in the future, and I think that was why it felt like Machado went through less change than she would have in real life.
At the same time, I think the seeming lack of change in the narrator’s character is because Machado remains herself before and after the experience. She has just found her way to process what has happened to her. In this case, that involves using other media and references to process her own feelings.
Though all characters other than Machado and the woman in the dream house are fairly minor, I do think Val deserves a mention. Val was Machado’s plot twist. They’d met because Val was in a relationship with the woman in the dream house when the woman in the dream house met and fell in love with Machado. The woman in the dream house broke up with Val to be with Machado. And later on, Machado broke up with Val to be with a new girlfriend, Amber.
Machado and Val began to talk as they shared something in common. Machado mentioned how it was hard telling people about her abuse because she had no proof. But at least Val would believe her. Machado had told Val that she couldn’t believe Val had agreed to an open relationship with the woman in the dream house. It was during that conversation that the women discovered that (probably) the woman in the dream house had lied to Machado about being in an open relationship, and only asked Val to be in an open relationship after the woman in the dream house had fallen in love, kissed, and had sex with Machado. That would line up with our impression of the woman in the dream house, as Machado’s friends had told her about the woman walking around Iowa with another woman, when they had not really broken up yet.
It's hard to consider the ‘characters’ in this book as actual characters because they are people, but more so because they feel more like experiences. Machado ‘overcame’ the woman in the dream house. Machado was not a character who grew, she was a person who overcame.
Themes
Dream
Machado’s romance with the woman in the dream house was a dream at first. She had come in and swept Machado off of her feet. But their romance turned into a dream in the sense that it felt like abuse was happening to Machado and she had little power to control it, much like how we often operate in dreams without really having control.
I also mentioned how the novel was written like a dream. The chapters were very short, reminiscent of how dreams will jump from scene to scene without much logic. The use of first and second pronouns also added to that hazy atmosphere, and put a distance between the narrator and the events.
House
The concept of houses was a big theme in this book that I felt was very deeply explored. The house in Bloomington, Indiana represented the relationship between Machado and the woman in the dream house. It was after the woman moved in that they decided they would be exclusive. That was when Machado decided that the woman was it, that they’d be together forever, have kids together, etc. Machado would drive for hours from Iowa to Indiana just to visit the woman in the dream house.
Houses often represent safety and stability, but to Machado, this is not the case. She mentioned how houses are safe in the way that people in Vegas say that the house always wins – that line really struck me. The house is only safe for the one who owns the house. This was the house of the woman in the dream house. This was not Machado. This reminded of Machado of fa childhood experience, in which she had gotten into a fight with her parents and had locked herself in her room. Her parents had removed the doorknob, which signalled to Machado that this room was not hers, she was just borrowing a room in the house that ultimately belonged to her parents. So the idea of the house was never safe to Machado. Deep down inside, she perhaps recognized that.
Machado also explored the theme of houses in gothic novels. In gothic novels, the houses are often one of the horrors, and in the abusive relationship, this seemed to become a reality for Machado.
Queerness
Queerness was of course a huge topic that was covered by Machado and I will in no way be able to speak to it in full, but I will point out some of the things that I remember.
Queer people have been fighting for equal rights in relationships forever. So there’s a bit of shame that comes with admitting that one is in a queer relationship that is abusive. It feels like they’re reflecting poorly on the community, and that will give the authorities another reason to deny them basic relationship rights. Machado had brought up a case in which a queer woman was being put on trial for abuse of their lover. It was the one queer person on the jury who had to be convinced of a guilty verdict, because they didn’t want to convict a queer woman. But Machado pointed out that the victim was also a queer woman. Another example was that the first queer couple who had gotten married in a certain American state (I forget which state) had gotten divorced just after five years. There’s a pressure on queer couples to be a perfect example of a happy couple, so that the authorities won’t take away their rights.
There was a short chapter towards the beginning of the novel that described how queerness was often associated with evil in earlier media. Disney villains like Ursula or Cruella de Ville were heavily queer coded. And so when queer people in Machado’s life acted like those characters, she might have overlooked their poor personality traits. I don’t want to take this correlation literally, because I do understand that queerness is not evil. Rather, I think I would portray it as the fact that one may overlook bad traits because they connect with the relatable traits, and sometimes that is because those bad traits are often closely tied with those exact relatable traits in pop culture. There was also a deep dive into the move Stranger by the Lake, in which a queer character was defending their lover who they knew to be a murderer. Why did they do that? Was it because they so desperately wanted to protected another queer man? Again, it’s complex. And I think it’s something that non-queer people can relate to as well, the idea that you may overlook someone’s bad traits because you love them so much.
Abuse
There were some chapters that outlined abuse among lesbian couples. Women were not seen as aggressors for much of culture, so courts never even considered women as possible abusers. Not even when women would kill their lovers. There was no language for abuse among lesbian couples then, and in Machado’s own story, she too struggled to find a way to define what she was feeling with the woman in the dream house. The way she was feeling hurt, the way she didn’t understand that it was abuse.
Later in the book, after she had broken up with the woman in the dream house, Machado struggled with convincing others that it happened. She had no bruises, no physical evidence to show that she was hurt. And it meant a lot to her when even just one person told her that she believed her. Because to suffer this much, to have this much fear and panic from just one person, and not be believed, is a very scary feeling.
Overall
I really appreciated this book. I appreciated this author for being brave enough to share such a traumatic experience for me. But I also really appreciated this book for how it was written. It was written simply and in a way that was very digestible, and yet it covered so much. Like I said, it felt so complete, because Machado was pulling in so many experiences to shape and explain to us the entirety of what she was feeling.