Why you should read: Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado
By Lydia Beardmore
“That may not be the version of the story you’re familiar with. But I assure you, it’s the one you need to know.”
These words uttered from the first story of ‘Her Body and Other Parties’ may be the collection’s most apt as it kicks off a spooky queer chain letter of eerie secrets in shopping malls, folk horror, creepy Hitchcock-esque artists retreats, nightmares and TV shows retold with the familiarity of ghost stories that is near impossible to put down. Carmen Maria Machado’s debut short story collection takes the folk tales of childhood and paints them in millennial punk rock bisexual acid tones for our reading pleasure. Cutting stories between 90s American suburbia and a burrowing insect infestation with sharp social commentary. Machado uses genre mashups to her absolute advantage, flitting between horror, sci-fi, fan fiction and psychological realism to terrifying avail on the right side of camp.
The Cuban-American author is no stranger to genre experiments, the Iowa Writer’s Workshop graduate’s latest book ‘In the Dream House’, a memoir about an abusive relationship, is told and retold in various genres from lesbian pulp novel to stoner comedy. Where genre bending could feel gimmicky, the use of experimental form and nods to troupes within the many experiments feel one step ahead of tacky. Her writing is endlessly elegant and self aware as it brims with sexuality and a tone that strikes the perfect balance between current conversations and guttural human experience in this collection.
‘The Husband Stitch’ is the book’s most cited and memorable tale (its rise to discussion largely due to pushing forward debates on the surgical procedure from which the story takes its name). The narrative intermingles campfire horror stories and other urban legends with a woman’s journey through life and marriage. It is narrated as though orally, a modern retelling of ‘The Green Ribbon’ with directions for the reader throughout. The directions begin as voices for the characters and evolve into full on actions almost as devastating to read as they would be to perform, for example, “If you are reading this story out loud, prepare a soda can full of pennies. When you arrive at this moment, shake it loudly in the face of the person closest to you. Observe their expression of startled fear, and then betrayal. Notice how they never look at you in exactly the same way for the rest of your days.”
Besides retelling the ‘Green Ribbon’ fable, the story references various urban myths and horror tales about the lives of women who met cruel fates - the tales we grow up hearing, that women must fear the world and even if they follow the rules, cruel fates are not out of the question. In the story, the narrator tells the reader of her life and the man she marries. She has a ribbon around her neck, her husband wants to touch it. It becomes clear the story is not only about consent and boundaries but what vulnerabilities so many people are born with, what it is to be a woman. What unravels is a literary hall of mirrors, we ask how many tales are being told within this one? Where are the lines between fact and fiction? What is truth and how much of truth is dependant on the narrator? Just like the myth of the stitch itself, just because official evidence is lacking, the ‘truth’ is as real as experienced, ‘As a grown woman, I would have said to my father that there are true things in this world only observed by a single set of eyes.’
While the collection straddles genres and in places only tinges some tales with this treatment (‘The Resident’ and ‘Mothers’ are the collection’s additional horror offerings but bear more resemblance to psychological drama.) The sci-fi elements of the book make their way into the present world in forms of epidemics and surgical mishaps. They present as commentaries on body image and the fragile nature of humanity. ‘Inventory’ reads a list of lovers and builds a dystopian story within, whereas ‘Real women have bodies’ links female body image to a vanishing epidemic paying sharp attention to the nature of outward appearances and living under the male gaze. In one particularly funny scene our lead overhears a conversation between male coworkers, ‘Hips,” Chris says. “That’s what you want. Hips and enough flesh for you to grab onto, you know? What would you do without something to hold? That’s like—like—” “Like trying to drink water without a cup,”’
As the title would suggest, each story makes reference to the body and its placement in world or in the embodied experiences of women. Taking up the middle section of the book is the novella ‘Especially Heinous: 272 Views of Law & Order SVU’, a fan fiction synopsis by synopsis break down of every episode of Law and Order SVU. This novella takes the reader through a listed summary of a show based around femicide and the female body as violent commodity. The novella was conceived during a flu induced fever in which Machado watched the entire series. Her synopsis story brutally lists murder after murder and entangles Twin Peaks-esque dream sequences and detective love affairs. Here, genre is used to poke fun at the stereotypes surrounding female detective in shows such as this one, making surreal digs at being forced to choose their career over a love life or even healthy eating habits.
It is this playful awareness that keeps the collection from going overboard with its imaginative takes on reality. Where sci-fi can be used as a tool to imagine a world as it could be (or how we’ve misused it), the use of the technology or bold utopias/dystopias is not at the heart here. It is instead a subversive side shift to the present world and shining a much needed light on the inequalities that currently exist in a way that glistens through the gore. In an age where the films of horror and science fiction are thinking more deeply about the social statement, their works are making the genre can be utilised to cause more of an undercurrent to the world we are currently in and creatively use the body as political landscape. The unreal penetrates the familiar in this universe so easily it is no surprise that Machado was vastly influenced by 100 Years of Solitude as a child and cites, Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson and Angela Carter as influences. It is the truth, told in all its witchery that keeps with collection under one’s skin.
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Lydia Beardmore is a writer and photographer currently based in London where she studies Anthropology of Travel, Tourism and Pilgrimage at SOAS. She lived in Istanbul for a number of years and considers it her true home. She has written for a variety of publications including ReOrient, Time Out Istanbul and Little White Lies and hosts spoken word events and creative writing workshops across Europe. She also runs a female-focused travel writing blog which can be found at www.puddingshoppress.com