Carmen Maria Machado's new memoir in the Dream House is as beautiful as it is haunting.

By telling the story of an abusive relationship between Machado and another woman, it offers

a compelling meditation on desire, power, wanting to be wanted, and the complexity of who gets

cast as a villain.

Carmen, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me.

I could not put in The Dream House Down.

It is incredible. Congratulations.

Thank you.

I loved it.

You are obviously a very gifted storyteller. You and I both Cuban, more

specifically, both have Cuban fathers. Cubans are storytellers. They are. Tell me about an early

memory you have of learning or experiencing the power of storytelling. Who in your life was a good storyteller? Oh, my grandfather,

my dad's father, he actually passed away this year, so I've been thinking about him. You know,

he had dementia. And at the end, there was something really hard about that person who was so, like,

alive and so, and would tell stories. And, you know, to see that person

sort of diminished in that way towards the end of his life was, like, very difficult. But when I

was a kid, my grandfather was, like, the most exciting person in the whole world. I mean, he would

tell really great stories about Cuba and about, you know, coming to the United States. So there was

this giant ceramic St. Bernard statue in their house who they called Bruno.

And what he said to me one time was he explained that he was walked past a store and he saw it for sale and he bought it.

And then he got a little cart to put it on and put it like a leash around its neck.

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