Happy Halloween! No tricks today; have I got a treat for you today or what! You’re living under a (literary) rock if you haven’t encountered the work of Carmen Maria Machado, and I wanted to highlight her this week because NEXT WEEK, her memoir In the Dream House, comes out from Graywolf Press, who also published her first collection, Her Body and Other Parties, which was probably my favorite book I read in 2018. “The Husband Stitch” is the opening story in Her Body and Other Parties, and was first published by Granta in 2014.
– What’s that? he asks.
– Carmen Maria Machado, “The Husband Stitch”
– Oh, this? I touch my ribbon at the back of my neck. It’s just my ribbon. I run my fingers halfway around its green and glossy length, and bring them to rest on the tight bow that sits in the front. He reaches out his hand, and I seize it and push it away.
– You shouldn’t touch it, I say. You can’t touch it.
Read “The Husband Stitch” here, in Granta. Then, pre-order In the Dream House (link above!)
