Ghosty Ghosty

Machado’s debut short story collection is a stunner. Machado writes what can best be described as erotic, genre-bending ghost stories and they never disappoint. Amazon’s description: “In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women’s lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.” Read the first story, “The Husband Stitch,” and you won’t have a choice but to keep reading the rest of the collection.