Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties (reviewed by Penny Reeve)
Carmen Maria Machado’s writing has — very rightly so — been receiving a lot of attention recently. Readers have been champing at the bit for more of Machado’s work since she set the literary world alight in 2014 with the incredible short “The Husband Stitch” and now we’re rewarded with a collection of her short stories with Her Body and Other Parties, which I’m already slating as one of my top reads of 2017. Machado has some serious literary strings to her bow, having written for NPR, Electric Literature, VICE and the New Yorker. Her short stories have appeared numerous anthologies including Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and Best Woman’s Erotica. The new collection, featuring the aforementioned “The Husband Stitch” — which was nominated for both the Shirley Jackson and Nebula awards, as well as being longlisted for the James Tiptree Jr. and winning a Pushcart Prize special mention — has received praise from just about everyone, including author du jour Roxane Gay, LA Times and Kirkus, which shortlisted Her Body and Other Parties for their annual titular prize, despite it only being published October 3.
