If you're silent about your pain, they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it.

That right there is Azora Neal Hurston quote, and damn it's powerful.

If you're silent about your pain, they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it.

My first time encountering that quote was at the beginning of Carmen Maria Machado's new book called In the Dreamhouse.

It's about Carmen's relationship with the next girlfriend who psychologically tormented her.

She belittled her, she screamed at her, she controlled and manipulated her.

Reviewers have called in the Dreamhouse the most innovative memoir out there, period.

There's cultural criticism in it and a choose your own adventure.

The chapters are organized by genre.

Dreamhouse as murder mystery.

Dreamhouse as haunted mansion.

Dreamhouse as lesbian pulp novel.

It's like the way I organize everything.

So it just made sense that it was the way that I would organize this book that in many ways felt impossible to write.

You know, impossible to categorize.

That's Carmen.

I would describe it.

Oh my god.

I know it's funny because people haven't describing it really differently.

Um, I guess I would describe it as an exp-

an experimental memoir about many things including queer into a partner of violence that uses genre as a mode of interrogation.

You're listening to Code Switch from NPR.

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