Review of Carmen Maria Machado’s exceptional collection of stories: Her Body and Other Parties.

“Imagine, now, an episode of Black Mirror, in which the female-body-as-haunted-house is the prime subject, a corporeal metaphor undergoing a cinematic vivisection. A symphonic series of camera angles, close-ups, rapid cuts and fade-outs commingle with bones-in-the-attic narrative and feminist bloodletting, Camille Paglia channeling Shirley Jackson, and we, the viewers, are riveted to the screen, to the exposed interior of a haunted house that seems never-ending in its shadowed corridors and passageways. The episode closes with an appropriately unsettling final scene, a cryptic air that slows time and promises an emotional hangover. You stare at the silent blackened void of the screen, waiting for music to play, for credits to roll, for something to happen. Finally, words appear in white block letters — Written by Carmen Maria Machado. This stirring episode hasn’t yet aired, because it hasn’t been written, but in a parallel realm where I get to play Netflix exec, Machado has been commissioned to contribute her unique and considerable talents to the Black Mirror universe.”

To read the full review in Riot Material, click here.