Her Body and Other Parties

Carmen Maria Machado

These are stories about the lives of ordinary women. Lives that are messy. Lives with coping strategies. Lives with sex and disease and the need to survive. Lives where werid things happen as a matter of course and ordinary things are completely strange. Lives without certainty, but lives with hope. Well worth a read. You will learn something about the way some women have to live.

Extract

Mara pauses for breath. So much time has passed that light streaks the sky outside the window. She takes me in again, my whole self into her eyes, all of my shame and pain and the truth of her mothers, the honest truth of them. I feel a jolt, my secrets slipping from me, unwilling. Then the screaming begins again, but I can endure it because of that precious moment, that break. My tolerance is fresh again, my love renewed. If she gives me one of those every day or so, I should be fine. I can do this. I can be a good mother.

Parallels