RaveBrooklyn RailThe exuberance, inventiveness, and obsessiveness of the memoir’s structure may put readers familiar with Machado’s short story collection Her Body and Other Parties ... The subject matter of her memoir, however, is vastly different ... In the Dream House ...confronts the issues of credibility, self-doubt, and disbelief that all too frequently arise when survivors of domestic abuse speak out. But the work also stands as an intervention explicitly aimed at the silences, erasures, and lacunae of the culture at large ... Although in our current political climate the \'last thing that queer women need is bad fucking PR,\' Machado holds out hope that \'by expanding representation, we give space to queers to be—as characters, as real people—human beings\' ... The innovative structure that Machado has devised for her memoir expertly and self-consciously creates such a space ... There is no predetermined form for such an account, no shape to which it must conform. The only limits are the intellect and imagination that the author can bring to bear on her experiences and, ultimately, what she cares to articulate about what she has worked (or is still working) through. Machado’s In the Dream House shows us that a narrative of lesbian domestic abuse can be her story told in precisely her way—a human story, full of artistry, candor, and grace.
