One note before we start. This episode includes discussion and descriptions of domestic abuse.

So please take care before going ahead.

You're listening to Book Exploder, where authors break down a passage from their work

to show us how they write. I'm Rishi Keishirui.

And I'm Susan Orleen.

Today I'm speaking to Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dreamhouse.

So in the Dreamhouse is one of the few nonfiction books that we're doing for our series.

How did you end up picking this one?

Well, I think that this book would stand examination in just about any genre,

whether it's fiction, nonfiction, poetry, gender studies. It's a remarkable book and memoir

about a very, very complicated, destructive relationship.

In the Dreamhouse was named one of the best books of 2019 by NPR and The New York Times

and Time Magazine. And it won several prizes, including the folio prize in 2021.

The book is broken into many, many short sections which have their own tone, their own

internal logic. And I first encountered it reading a section that I believe was excerpted

somewhere and I just thought I need to have this book immediately. I need to read this book.

Okay, here's Susan's interview with Carmen Maria Machado. Talking about a passage from the chapter

called Dreamhouse as House in Florida. I have many questions. So let's start with this particular

section because it is a real hinge in the book. Yeah. So I have just started dating the subject of

the memoir. An ex-girlfriend. We have decided to go visit her parents. We did sort of a road trip

and then we flew to Florida where her parents live. And that's where we begin. It's also in second

person. I'm all the sort of memoir passages of this book or in second person. And it comes not

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