Books
Queer author Carmen Maria Machado draws raves for ‘Her Body’ short story collection
Writer says family storytelling tradition, collegiate experiences inform her fiction
Author Carmen Maria Machado says her love of reading and the storytelling tradition of her family deeply inform her work. (Photo courtesy Tom Storm Photography)
All fiction writers need imagination. Carmen Maria Machado’s is so vivid, she sometimes passes it on to her characters.
“Sometimes I sat on the porch and gave imaginary interviews to NPR personalities,” says the narrator of “The Resident,” a short story in Machado’s debut collection “Her Body and Other Parties.” “”When I write, I feel like I’m being hypnotized,’ I told Terry Gross. ‘It was at that moment I knew everything was going to change,’ I told Ira Glass.’”
For most writers, such daydreams remain mere fantasies. Few authors become literary superstars or suddenly find themselves under the spotlight on NPR. Yet this is what happened to Machado, a 31-year-old queer writer.
Her short story collection “Her Body and Other Parties” (Graywolf Press), released in October, has received the attention usually bestowed on the work of literary giants such as Toni Morrison or Michael Cunningham. “Parties” was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Kirkus Prize and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. It won the Bard Fiction Prize. It’s her first full-length work though she has had many of her stories published in various outlets.
“Parties” is unlike any previous short story collection. Women’s bodies, queerness and feminism pulsate through the tales in “Parties” from “Inventory” to “Difficult at Parties.” Yet the book isn’t didactic or the least bit doctrinaire. Like the horror movie “Get Out,” the stories pop with horror and comedy.
Women have joyous sex, even as people die worldwide from a virus spread by physical contact. A sexual assault survivor hears the inner thoughts of characters in porn. A novella “Especially Heinous: 272 Views of Law & Order: SVU,” is a piercing, but hilarious send up of “Law & Order: SVU” and its fascination with sexually traumatized women.
“The collection is that hallowed thing: an example of almost preposterous talent,” the Los Angeles Times said of “Her Body and Other Parties,” “that also encapsulates something vital but previously diffuse about the moment.”
Storytelling, Machado says during a Blade phone interview, is part of her family tradition. Her paternal grandfather came to the U.S. from Cuba; his wife was from Austria. They met as immigrants in New York. Her mother’s family is white.
“Storytelling, especially on the Cuban side of the family, is important,” Machado, an Allentown, Pa., native who now lives with her wife Val in Philadelphia, says. “My grandfather has dementia, but we can still recite stories back to him and he remembers.”
She incorporates that oral storytelling tradition in her work. Her love of reading and writing, as one might imagine, has deep roots.
As a child, Machado read voraciously. She went to the library and devoured books like candy, reading at breakneck speed, she says.
“All kids write stories. I wrote them and typed them out. I always loved the idea of being a writer.”
Machado sent her stories to publishers and authors. Her letters yielded no publishing offers, but, “my wife who works in publishing says that some delighted interns at the publishing houses must have loved my letters.”
To her surprise and delight, Machado heard back from Livia Bitton-Jackson, a Holocaust survivor and author of the memoir “I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust.”
“In the book, Bitton-Jackson talked about how the poems she wrote were left behind when she was taken by the Nazis,” she says. “I wrote to her and asked what happened to her poems. One day, my mom, who was confused by it, said, ‘There’s a letter for you from Israel.’”
Bitton-Jackson told Machado that she didn’t get her poems back, but that she’d kept on writing.
“She asked me about myself,” she says. “It felt magical that a real person — a writer — wrote back to me.”
When she was young in the 1990s, Machado didn’t understand that she was queer.
“I had crushes on girls, but I didn’t think of it in that way. I didn’t have any framework,” she says. “I didn’t know anyone who was out and queer until I went to college.”
Machado graduated from American University in 2008 with a degree in visual media. During her years in Washington, she read the Blade as she was coming out.
“I thought, ‘Oh this is who I am,’” she says. “My parents were pretty chill, though they were a bit confused because I was lesbian/bi. They didn’t quite understand why I would date a guy, but they were great about it.”
Attitudes about being queer were different for some of Machado’s extended family.
“Some of them were very religious,” she says, “but I didn’t have to deal with a lot of that kind of nonsense. I feel extremely lucky.”
Machado went to college to study journalism, but quickly realized that wasn’t what she wanted to do, so she switched to literature and photography.
“I wanted to get loose with my sentences,” Machado says. “I didn’t have the blood thirst, the nose for news, to be a reporter.”
After graduating, Machado moved to Berkeley, Calif., working random jobs during the recession and enduring a bad break-up, which she says made her miserable. But she didn’t stop writing. A creative writing teacher, whom she calls “a lovely human being,” encouraged her to keep writing stories.
Her stint at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop from 2010-2012, where she earned a master’s degree, changed everything professionally for her.
“Suddenly, I was getting paid to be in grad school and write,” she says. “I didn’t have to worry about finding jobs. I had good health insurance. I could go to therapy and figure out my aesthetic.”
And, of course, her success with “Her Body” has helped fuel ongoing efforts. “House in Indiana,” a memoir about same-sex domestic violence is due in 2019.
“Same-sex violence isn’t talked about,” Machado says. “I wanted to talk about it.”
Kathi Wolfe, a writer and a poet, is a regular contributor to the Blade.
Books
‘Mighty Real’ explores history of LGBTQ music
From Judas Priest to Whitney, something for every taste
‘Mighty Real: A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000’
By Barry Walters
c.2026, Viking
$35/496 pages
Step, step, tap, back step.
Shimmy in a circle, left hand waving over your head, shake your tail feathers, repeat to the beat. Once there was a time when you could do any dance in your sleep, but it’s been a while. So read “Mighty Real” by Barry Walters, and see if your toes don’t tap.
Fifty-seven years after Stonewall, and here we are: LGBTQ musicians still face scrutiny for their sexuality because, says Walters, music isn’t created for gay listeners. No problem: LGBTQ artists and writers have often penned lyrics carefully in order to say what can’t be said, “coding” songs for gay audiences that straight (and ignorant) listeners can dance to and enjoy with apparent obliviousness.
Walters offers “just a few” examples.
Lou Reed sang about trans people in the late ‘60s and offered a rallying song for the Gay Liberation Front in 1972, the latter of which felt like a message to a then-11-year-old Walters. Janis Joplin claimed she was straight, but she had several girlfriends. Motown singers often offered sometimes-ambiguous lyrics.
John Lennon’s hand placement on the back cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band made Walters begin to understand that he was different from other boys.
David Bowie is on his list, of course, as is Bette Midler, Elton John, Donna Summer, and Queen. You’ll find Judas Priest here, Green Day, and punk music. The Village People are included in this book, also Grace Jones, Duran Duran, and Cher, Whitney, Melissa, Latifah, and the lyrics from several blockbuster movies.
Two of Prince’s band members were lesbians, and they heavily influenced his albums. Diana Ross’s “I’m Coming Out” cemented her position in LGBTQ culture, and Michael Jackson’s inclusion here takes much careful consideration.
Read about Olivia Newton-John and the B52s. And then there’s Sylvester, for whom Walters has a soft spot in his heart. Sylvester’s death still makes Walters cry.
In his preface, author and music writer Barry Walters points out that music is what you make it and that it’s interpreted differently by each individual. To that end, this book naturally consists of preferential history and personal opinions about singers, bands, albums, and songs.
Agree or disagree. That’s where much of the appeal lies in “Mighty Real.”
Here, Walters wraps his memories around his choices, giving readers room for their own views, memories, and list making. Music-loving readers might also be surprised to note who’s not on Walters’ list – there aren’t many country performers here, for example, and the overall list focuses entirely on music from roughly 1968 to the year 2000, mostly on the kinds of songs you’ll want at the club or party. Again, discuss, and curate your own playlist.
This is a hefty book, but the chapters are browse-able and generally short enough to read in under five minutes. It’s nostalgic, yet also serious in the history it presents. This is the kind of book you want to leave near your album collection, or wherever you get your tunes. But finding “Mighty Real” is your first step.
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You’re all geared up.
You’ve got your best parade-walking shoes, your coolest tee, your most-comfortable shorts, and a rainbow flag to carry. You’re set for Pride, but before you go, try one of these great new books about LGBTQ life and history.
After the parade, where will you end up? A place to talk your experience over, to re-hash things for the next parade? Then you may need “The Lesbian Bar Chronicles: The Living History and Hopeful Future of America’s Dyke Dives and Sapphic Spaces” by Rachel Karp (Beacon Press, $29.95).
Lesbian bars, says Karp, are more than just places to drink. They’re also places to find community, and to organize. For many, she says, they are “sanctuaries,” as they have been for at least a century, and this book introduces you to some of the people who run the establishments, the things they do to support their patrons, and the 100-year-plus bravery that it took to own, run, and enter a lesbian bar.
If you had to name a gay icon, there are probably quite a few who come to mind. So read “Without Prejudice: My Life as a Gay Judge” by Harvey Brownstone (ECW Press, $21.95) and add another name to your list.
This memoir, written by Canada’s first openly gay judge, takes readers from Brownstone’s childhood to his life as a lawyer, then to his work within the justice system in Ontario, and beyond, to his current career. This is a surprising, informative book that gives you an idea what gay life is like, north of our uppermost borders, then and now.
Pride is a celebration, an event, but it also demands a peek backwards, and in “The LGBTQ Almanac: 500 Years of Queer Culture in American History” by Deborah G. Felder (Visible Ink Press, $39.95), you’ll get a wide look at the pioneers, allies, policy, and gay life over the course of the last five centuries. Want to know more about religion in the gay community? It’s in here, along with celebrities, presidents, science, business, and more. This is the kind of book that settles bets. It’s one you want to have in any room of your home because it’s comprehensive and perfectly browse-able for all of its 600-plus pages.
And finally, here’s a book to read and think about: “No Fats No Fems: A Guide to Queer Empathy and Unpacking Prejudice” by Max Hovey (HarperOne, $19.99). How do you eliminate hateful, hurtful words, aimed at gay people – by gay people? What kind of stereotypes do we carry, unintentionally? This book takes those things out into the daylight by talking honestly and thoughtfully about them, as well as other issues. It’s a book to have when doubts creep in, when you need a new way of thinking or a different direction, or when you just want something different to read.
And if these great books aren’t enough, head to your favorite bookstore or library and ask for books that you can read before Pride or after. And happy Pride!
Books
New books reveal style trends for a more enlightened century
Guidelines that hint about gendering clothing are out
Books about Fashion and Style
By various authors
c.2026, various publishers
$19.95 – $29.95
Don’t look now, but your legs are showing.
It’s OK, it’s almost summertime and you want to show both skin and style. So how about a few hints for looking your best? Check out these great books and get stylin’.
Who says there are rules about fashion? Wearing white before Memorial Day is OK; socks with sandals not so much? Fine, but in “Bending the Rules: Fashion Beyond the Binary” by Camille Benda with Gwyn Conaway (Princeton Architectural Press, $29.95), you’ll see that any guidelines that hint about gendering clothing are oh-so-last century.
Along with lively, fun narrative, there are lots of photos in this book, ads for how clothing used to be worn along male-female lines, and short biographies of some of today’s best designers. Here, you can check out prom dresses from the 1950s and new haute couture gowns practically right off the runway – and see how one parallels with the other. The timeline reaches back centuries, so you get a nice idea of where certain kinds of clothing originated and how it’s relevant today – making what’s inside here perfect for browsing.
Pick up this book, in fact, and you might also pick up some ideas for filling your closet and creating your very own style.
The fashion you wear on your body isn’t all you’ll find in “Pretend to Be Fancy: A Field Guide to Style and Sophistication” by Whitney Marston Pierce (Chronicle Books, $19.95). You’ll also read about other nice things you can have.
So you’re not a pinky-in-the-air kind of person, whatever. You can easily hang with those who are, once you read and absorb this book.
Tongue-tied at fancy soirees? Not anymore, there are tips for talking here. What do you know about canapes, hors d’oeuvres, and the kind of foods you don’t get at the corner c-store? How do you make a charcuterie that everyone will Ooooooh over? And how do you give a gift for the person whose taste seems scads better than yours? That’s all in here, along with what to drink, how to dress, and how to make every corner of your home look like something right out of a high-end magazine.
Will this book make you chic? Possibly, yes. Will it help you get invited to all the best parties? Maybe, but for sure, it’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you feel fabulous, look fabulous, and live your best life with the surroundings you deserve. Out May 5, so put it on your list.
But let’s say you need more ideas. You have questions or thorny issues with fashion that you really need answering. That’s when you ask for a talented fashionista at your local bookstore or library, that knowledgeable someone knows books and knows how to get what you need to be your most dazzling, best-dressed, finest-appointed self in a home you can be proud of, with comfortable furniture that will be the envy of everyone who sees it.
In the meantime, grab the above titles, because these books got legs.
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