Her Body and Other Parties

Queer desire is both celebrated and analyzed in the collection. In “The Husband Stitch,” the main character suppresses her same-sex desire in order to continue fulfilling her whole-hearted commitment to her husband, again accenting the theme of female oppression. “Inventory” moves fluidly from homosexual to heterosexual desire. “Mothers” addresses queer abuse in a domestic partnership as well as the urge to ignore the abuse in favor of a utopian domestic fantasy. “Especially Heinous” ends with queer love, while “Real Women Have Bodies” centers on a queer relationship.

Many of Machado’s characters suffer from acute isolation. In “Invention,” a deadly virus forces the main character further and further into a solitary life that becomes even more threatening than the virus itself. In “Mothers,” the main character is isolated by the dysfunction of her own relationship, and this isolation forces her into fantasy and delusion. In “Real Women Have Bodies,” women are literally transformed into ghostly specters of themselves, losing all agency and sense of individuality. The “Difficult at Parties” protagonist’s trauma leads to her inability to socialize with her peers and to be intimate with her boyfriend, Paul.