Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties was published in 2017, and I can only assume that the stories that make up the collection were written in the years prior, but it’s an incredibly timely book to have picked up, now. With a combination of horror, magical realism, fantasy, and fable wrapped up around mysterious viruses, disappearing women, and lapses in sanity, this book kind of feels like it should be required reading for anyone currently living.
Aside from being topical, this collection is beautiful. I loved stories like “The Husband Stitch” and “The Resident,” which seemed to burst forth from campfire stories, abandoning the route retellings when it suited but relying on the known elements of ghost stories whenever they could. “Inventory” and “Real Women Have Bodies” felt as though they burst forward from ideas currently circulating in our collective consciousness, exploring solitude and kinship, illness and despair and mortality and powerlessness, all at once. Only one story – “Especially Heinous” – didn’t resonate with me. The rest of this collection is gold.
I don’t buy books as often as I once did, but every once in awhile, I read something that touches me so profoundly I want to own it and share it, to buy a copy for me and for five of my closest friends. This is one such book.