Machado’s electrifying stories destabilize the familiar truths of psychological realism with jolts of a surreality that’s usually more at home in speculative fiction or outright horror. Writing in the vein of Angela Carter and Clarice Lispector, Machado focuses on women and the unequal power structure that affects all facets of their lives, especially their relation to their own bodies. In one story, she tracks a mysterious epidemic that causes women to evaporate. In another a woman recovering from a trauma develops the power to hear the unspoken thoughts of actors in porn films. Original and subversive, Machado doesn’t just suggest that culture needs an overhaul. She reimagines every episode of Law & Order, turning mere police procedural into something haunting and deeply true.

http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781555977887

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