Carmen Maria Machado isn’t teaching this year. In the spring of 2019 she won a Guggenheim Fellowship, so she’s taking the year to work on a new project. That didn’t stop her from teaching me, as we discussed In the Dream House, her new memoir focused on the dynamics of a relationship she was in while pursuing a master’s degree from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. The book is groundbreaking—we would expect nothing less from the author of the outstanding 2017 short-story collection Her Body and Other Parties—in its exploration of romance that gradually descends from cautious bliss into gaslighting and abusive control. Despite the book’s heavy material, Machado is full of laughter on the phone and patiently professorial as she schooled me on the Gothic genres.
Is it difficult to discuss In the Dream House without feeling on trial for the romantic relationship it describes?
People have been really interested in talking about the relationship and talking about my ex. And obviously that’s an element of it. But for obvious reasons, I am least interested in talking about that part. I feel like that’s the most boring element of the book.