My debut memoir, In the Dream House,is available from Graywolf Press (US) and Strange Light (Canada), and Serpent's Tail (UK).
”Welcome to the House of Machado. Proceed directly into the forbidden room; enjoy the view as the floor gives way.” —Parul Sehgal, The New York Times
One of the best-reviewed nonfiction titles of 2019

An LA Times Bestseller

Her new book, “In the Dream House,” is a memoir of her frightening and abusive relationship with another woman while in graduate school. It is a book in shards. Carmen Maria Machado’s. Carmen Maria Machado is the author of In the Dream House and Her Body and Other Parties, a finalist for the National Book Award. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she is the writer in residence at the University of Pennsylvania and lives in Philadelphia with her wife.

The prologue of Carmen Maria Machado's memoir, In the Dream House, defines the concept of archival silence: “sometimes stories are destroyed, and sometimes they are never uttered in the first place; either way something very large is irrevocably missing from our collective histories.” Queerness itself has been left out of the narrative for. The American author Carmen Maria Machado has won the £30,000 Rathbones Folio prize for her memoir In the Dream House, which examines the domestic abuse she was subjected to by her ex-girlfriend. In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado Graywolf Press, November 2019 272 pages / Bookshop / Amazon Carmen Maria Machado is an American author and recipient of the Bard Fiction Prize, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, and the John Leonard Prize for her 2017 story collection Her Body and Other Parties.

Winner of the Lambda Literary Award in LGBTQ Nonfiction / Winner of the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction / Finalist for the Stonewall Book Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award / Finalist for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing / Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
Best Book of the Year:
The New Yorker / TIME Magazine / New York Times / NPR / Publishers Weekly / BookPage / Vulture / Autostraddle / LitHub / Vogue / Kirkus / Entertainment Weekly / Harper’s Bazaar / The Atlantic / Paris Review / Vogue / Washington Post / A.V. Club

Best Memoir of the Decade:
LitHub / Paste / Autostraddle

Forthcoming Foreign Editions:
Brazilian / German / Italian / Norwegian / Polish / Russian / Spanish

You can purchase In the Dream House at your local independent bookstore, or from:
Graywolf Press / Bookstore Link / IndieBound
Powell’s / Amazon / Barnes & Noble
The audiobook is available here.

(Buy it HERE.)

“The memoir is, at its core, an act of resurrection. Memoirists re-create the past, reconstruct dialogue. They summon meaning from events that have long been dormant.”

A long time ago, for what seems like a very long time, Carmen Maria Machado was abused by her girlfriend. While the abuse was emotional rather than physical, it still left indelible marks and tracks on Machado. These have been shaped into motifs, stacked up and mortared together with introspection, literary quotes and bits of queer women’s history to create the experience that is In The Dream House.

Dream House Carmen Maria Machado

It’s strange to say this about a memoir of abuse, but this is my most enjoyable read of 2021 so far. It’s so fluid and beautifully constructed, with artful flowing prose that is deceptively easy to read. (I lost count of the number of times I read something, then 3 pages later said WHAT? and went back and re-read just to bask in the brilliance.)

This is such an incredible experience of a book. It rewards readers for being sensitive, well-read and open-minded but never makes us feel foolish about the parts that aren’t immediately parseable, that need thinking about and looking up and discussion. It invites you into the author’s life, giving and expecting no judgment, just appreciation and understanding.

Carmen Maria Machado Wife

In short, this book gives out a literary measure of the grace and care that Machado never received in the nightmare relationship in the Dream House, but has now found in abundance. It holds promise for understanding and healing for those in similar circumstances, who find their struggles rendered invisible by the way society may perceive them. It holds up a light to a blind spot that many people may have (that of domestic abuse in queer relationships). Most importantly, it is an intelligent, witty, honest masterpiece, and in time, will be considered essential for students of literature. (Seriously, it’s just a matter of time before this is on syllabi worldwide).

In The Dream House Carmen Maria Machado Review

“…just because the sharpness of the sadness has faded does not mean that it was not, once, terrible.“

In The Dream House Carmen Maria Machado Pdf

5 stars and the highest of accolades to In The Dream House.