In the Dream House, a moving and provocative narrative from one of today’s most celebrated writers, acclaimed short-story writer Carmen Maria Machado follows her protagonist through a nightmare relationship. Set in New York City, a place very nearly as real as we make it, In the Dream House traces an epic quest across continents and decades to uncover answers to her darkest questions—who she is and where she comes from—while navigating the course of their ill-fated romance.
A shuttered home and an abandoned car, a dream home full of violence, loneliness and fear. In The Dream House, Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse are explored in depth. It may be hard to believe, but there are thousands of people out there who their partners have physically and emotionally tortured. In the Dream House—a lyrical, brilliant work of literary fiction—Carmen Maria Machado takes us on an unforgettable journey into their lives.
In the Dream House, Carmen Maria Machado fuses the fantastical with the everyday in a pair of distinctive narratives. A woman recounts an unforgettable home invasion as she searches for love and safety in an apartment building. And a man describes his experience as he recovers from drug abuse, reaching for sanity and truth amid mysterious neighbors and strange visions.
About In the Dream House Book
In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing experience with a charismatic but volatile woman, this is a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse.
Each chapter views the relationship differently, as Machado holds events up to the light and examines them from distinct angles. She casts a critical eye over legal proceedings, fairy tales, Star Trek and Disney villains, and iconic works of film and fiction, infusing all with her characteristic wit, playfulness and openness to inquiry. The result is a powerful book that explodes our ideas about what a memoir can do and be.
