Review: Her Body And Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

Carmen Maria Machado is a talented writer, but her favored structures and motifs do not mesh with mine.

At the prose level, I appreciated this collection of short stories. And I was interested in several of its themes, but dismayed by others. I'll lay out my thoughts story by story and then provide my general thoughts in more depth at the end.

The Husband Stitch- ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

I'm not hiding it. It just isn't yours.

While I think this could have been expanded upon more cleverly, I've always felt connected to the children's tale of the girl with the green ribbon. So I was excited by this adult retelling, where Machado illustrates how men strip women of their autonomy by demanding every part of them, even the parts they wish to keep to themselves. But having read the original children's story (as I assume most reading this collection have), it is quite obvious from the first page where it was going. I still enjoyed it, but it would have been elevated by a twist of some kind to drive the theme somewhere even less explored.

Inventory- ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

This is the first of many stories in this collection where I am confused why sex is the priority. It's clear that Machado is troubled in some way by her own sexuality, but it manifests in the stories quite strangely. Very clinically. And almost involuntarily?

Anyway, this story is quite literally an "inventory" of a woman's sexual experiences throughout her lifetime while navigating an apocalyptic pandemic. Again, I found the writing interesting, and especially the themes of outbreak and seeking connection (this was written pre-COVID), but the centering on sex is so strange.

I don't even think it's strange in theory—sex could be a good point of connection in a story of isolation—but something about the way Machado writes it feels... goal-oriented? Emotionless? Perhaps this is intentional (the title is "Inventory" after all), and is something Machado is grappling with internally. It just doesn't resonate with me.

Mothers- ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

It comes as no surprise that the story titled "Mothers" is one of my favorites. This story has some of the best sensory work I've ever read and the seamless decay of the narration from untouched to corrupted by her abuser is expert.

Especially Heinous- DNF

I read like 20 pages of this one and gave up. It's a re-write of the synopses of hundreds of Law & Order: SVU episodes, which I have never seen. It was tedious and dull.

Real Women Have Bodies- ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

This is the most memorable of the collection. I think it's the most thematically rich and original. The concept of women fading, becoming incorporeal due to some sort of disease, is impactful on both an individual and systematic level. This is one of the only stories in this collection I find fully realized (and reminds me of Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under the Sea), and the image of invisible women stitched into the gowns for sale at a dying mall will stick with me.

Eight Bites- ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ (2.5)

Another entry that read as cliché. Admittedly, I am not very personally connected to its central theme either, so that did not help.

The Resident- ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

I really wanted to love this one, and there were pockets of brilliance. It's a gothic story of a group of artists at a retreat on the top of a mountain. There are some stand-out moments and ideas, but it doesn't come together cleanly.

Difficult At Parties- ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ (3.5)

Now this one's themes are handled in a way I truly haven't seen before, so I must applaud Machado for that. It follows a woman and her partner as they navigate her recovery from sexual assault through watching porn. But instead of easing her back into pleasure, or desensitizing her from what happened, she begins to hear the actor's thoughts, haunting her through every moment that's meant to be pleasing. She wants so desperately to be who she once was, to feel how she once felt, but she's been changed. She can't separate her mind from her body. I love seeing this idea explored, but again, the story ends before it really has the chance to begin.

General thoughts-

Overall, I appreciated the writing and a few of the themes really stood out. I'm not a fan of the structure of many of the stories (to me, they feel unfinished), and I don't mesh with how her characters experience/register/prioritize sex (I am still slightly baffled at how to describe what I find so weird about how she writes it). Emily May's review communicates it better than I can.