Carmen Maria Machado

presents 

In the Dream House:
A Memoir

in conversation with KELLY LINK

This event includes a book signing

Date

Nov
6
Wednesday
November 6, 2019
6:00 PM ET
(Doors at 5:30)

Location

Brattle Theatre
40 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA 02138

Tickets

$27.75 (book bundled)

Harvard Book Store welcomes CARMEN MARIA MACHADO—the bestselling, award-winning author of Her Body and Other Parties—for a discussion of her highly anticipated new memoir, In the Dream House. She will be joined in conversation by KELLY LINK, master of short fiction and fantasy. This event is co-sponsored by Mass Humanities.

About In the Dream House

In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming.

And it’s that struggle that gives the book its original structure: each chapter is driven by its own narrative trope―the haunted house, erotica, the bildungsroman―through which Machado holds the events up to the light and examines them from different angles. She looks back at her religious adolescence, unpacks the stereotype of lesbian relationships as safe and utopian, and widens the view with essayistic explorations of the history and reality of abuse in queer relationships.

Machado’s dire narrative is leavened with her characteristic wit, playfulness, and openness to inquiry. She casts a critical eye over legal proceedings, fairy tales, Star Trek, and Disney villains, as well as iconic works of film and fiction. The result is a wrenching, riveting book that explodes our ideas about what a memoir can do and be.

Praise for In the Dream House

“A groundbreaking memoir in terms of both form and content. . . . Get ready for Machado to take you on several breakneck cross-country trips of the soul.” ―The Observer

“Carmen Maria Machado has re-imagined the memoir genre, creating a work of art both breathtakingly inventive and urgently true. In the Dream House is crucial queer testimony. I’ve never read a book like it.” ―Alex Marzano-Lesnevich

"Machado's prose is stellar as always, equal parts sensitive and staggering. Her Body and Other Parties stunned me, but this ripped me apart in a completely different way. Machado takes this unwritten collective history and gives it new meaning, new perspective, and a new sense of closure, for me and so many others who have had these experiences linger open-ended for so long." —Nat M., Harvard Book Store bookseller

Carmen Maria Machado
Carmen Maria Machado

Carmen Maria Machado

Carmen Maria Machado is the author of In the Dream House and Her Body and Other Parties, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. She lives in Philadelphia with her wife.

Kelly Link
Kelly Link

Kelly Link

Kelly Link is the author of the collections Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, Pretty Monsters, and Get in Trouble. Her short stories have been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Best American Short Stories, and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. She is a 2018 MacArthur Fellow and has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She currently lives with her husband and daughter in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Photo Credit: Sharona Jacobs

Tickets are available online only at harvard.com and harvardbookstore.eventbrite.com. All tickets include a copy of In the Dream House. Books bundled with tickets may only be picked up at the venue the night of the event, and cannot be picked up in-store beforehand.

Tickets are non-refundable and non-returnable.

Brattle Theatre
40 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA 02138

Walking from the Harvard Square T station: 10 minutes

As you exit the station, cross Mass. Ave. and proceed along Brattle St. Follow Brattle St. as it curves to the right in Brattle Square (follow the sidewalk on the right side of the street). The Brattle will be on the left-hand side of the street. The building is shared with Algiers Cafe and Alden & Harlow Restaurant, and the theatre entrance is on the left side of the building—look for the sidewalk poster case and marquee.

Unable to attend a Harvard Book Store author event? You can still pre-order a signed book by one of our visiting authors.

While we can't guarantee fulfillment of a signed book pre-order, our authors are almost always able to sign extra books to fulfill such orders.

Ordering a signed book on harvard.com:

  • Add the book to your shopping cart and then click Checkout.
  • Specify in Order Comments that you want a signed copy of the book.
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FAQ:

Can I request a personalized inscription?
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Co-Sponsored by Mass Humanities

Mass Humanities

 

Mass Humanities creates opportunities for the people of Massachusetts to transform their lives and build a more equitable Commonwealth through the humanities. Learn more at masshumanities.org.

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