Her Body and Other Parties

Stories

Paperback, 248 pages

Published Oct. 2, 2017 by Graywolf Press.

ISBN:
978-1-55597-788-7
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OCLC Number:
1005092634

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4 stars (4 reviews)

In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.

A wife refuses her husband's entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store's prom dresses. One woman's surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella Especially Heinous, Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a …

4 editions

Weird Stories

4 stars

I'm not a fan of short stories, but these were so well written that it was enough for me to finish the book. Most of the stories are very dark and scary. As far as I can remember all of them are magical realism from the pov of lesbian women, and mostly they revolve around sexism, sex, physical and mental illnesses. I skipped one of them though ("Especially Heinous" since I don't know the Law&Order series and figured the story would make not much sense to me). I really liked "The Husband Stitch" (omg it made me angry enough to kill), "Inventory" and "The Resident".

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4 stars