Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado review – Fairy Tales of Horror

By Anne Mitchell

Her Body and Other Parties is the perfect read for anyone who wants a more sophisticated Halloween experience than pumpkins and sheet ghosts. It collates a series of stories by the Shirley Jackson Award-winning author, Carmen Maria Machado.

The book has an opening gambit that will leave you spellbound, curious and appropriately horrified. Although it may not seem like it at first, “The Husband Stitch” tells a tale of sorrow, loneliness and a woman’s place in the world. Filled with subversion and allegory, the first story perfectly prepares you for each tale that follows. Every fable is an intimate exploration of familiar and distant horrors.

The horror of this collection largely avoids familiar tropes. It creeps up on you from behind, making you question why exactly you feel so unnerved until the moment that it becomes all too clear.

Machado’s work is lined with the feminine experience. Written in 2017, the book becomes ever more relevant as women’s rights seem to be taking hits across the globe. It is the unrepentant feminism that drives the stories – much of the uncertainty stems from the disregard for women and their experiences.

The longest of the stories, Especially Heinous, is a story told through imagined scenes from Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. The story is chilling at parts, heartwarming at others, and will leave you with a warm sort of pride for these characters from a TV show that you do not need to have seen. It deals with themes of abuse, queerness and the destruction of parts of yourself in an effort to become better than you were.

One issue within the book was that for almost every story, the ending was left open. It appropriately creates intrigue and makes sure that the story will plague your brain for some time after you finish it. This can make some of the stories a bit forgettable though, as when the next storm hits, there has been no time to process the last. 

This fairy tale collection of horror and solitude is the ideal book to curl up with on a windy autumn night to leave you with chills but no nightmares. Machado’s book is a masterpiece of fiction, Alissa Nutting put it best; “Her Body and Other Parties will delight you, hurt you and astonish you as only the smartest literature can.”