Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

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A review in Slate said, "In eight searingly original stories, Machado uses the literary techniques of horror and science fiction to expose the truth about our modern parables: that they're as grotesque and enchanting as any classic fairy tale. Then she discovers that she is sharing her house with the spirit of what she had cut away from herself. And even if he got them somewhere, my father continued, what would he have to gain by selling them among the potatoes? I also do not ask her if she’s married, and she does not volunteer the information, though she does not wear a ring.

We made out and she slipped her tongue into my mouth and after she went home I got off twice in the cool stillness of my apartment. In the day-to-day world, men joke about how it makes sex less fulfilling, and people around the narrator are concerned with how this is going to affect the fashion industry. The boys made out with each other, and we watched them for a long time, bored but too drunk to stand up.Most importantly, my father said, arriving triumphantly at his final piece of evidence, why did no one notice the toes except for you? I run my fingers halfway around its green and glossy length, and bring them to rest on the tight bow that sits in the front.

And then it had me thinking - is this symptomatic of we are 'supposed' to think about relationships? He comes to know the flicker of my expression as a desire passes through me, and I hold nothing back from him.She becomes concerned with being unoriginal, turning into 'the madwoman in the attic', and grapples with judgements of her identity, both from the past as well as the present.

Each “episode” reads as a plot summary one might find on Wikipedia or Netflix, and gives just enough information to tease our imaginations and awaken our nightmares. She chewed on her lip, and the pot of coffee tipped in her hand, dripping tiny brown dots onto the linoleum. Similarly, readers ask permission to swim through violent desires and the eerieness attached to faded women. Or perhaps the moral is that brides never fare well in stories, and one should avoid either being a bride, or being in a story. If you are reading this story out loud, make the sound of the bed under the tension of train travel and lovemaking by straining a metal folding chair against its hinges.

This not-so-subtle wink screams, ‘If you can’t join them, beat them,’ and in this story, Machado beats stereotypes to the ground by charging them head on. All this while it also portrays a girl who enters a lesbian relationship, while the two of them attempt to navigate a world that is changing rapidly - but only for women. We go from bustling, ancient metropolises to sleepy villages to alpine retreats and back again, sipping spirits and pulling roasted meat from bones with our teeth, eating spaetzle and olives and ravioli and a creamy grain I do not recognize but come to crave each morning. She looked at her boyfriend and then pulled her cardigan over her bare shoulders, wrapping one arm around her breasts.