[Review] In The Dream House - Unmasking the Veil on Queer Abuse

People are like houses, a strange concept I know but hear me out.

When we see a house, we make preconceived judgements based on first appearances. The front door, windows, garden, are the neighbours welcoming you with smiles or glares? Is there a sweet elderly cat lounging in the sun by the window or are all the curtains shut for fear of outsiders getting a glimpse of what is behind the bricks and glass? 

We might think we know everything we need to know about a person from first impressions, however, just like a house once the door is open, not everything is as it seems.

Carmen Maria Machado’s genre-bending memoir “In The Dreamhouse” (2019) is a heartfelt and tragic retelling of a relationship gone wrong, as she navigates through a succession of lust, love, abuse, freedom and living with the inevitable trauma.

Although a quick read, the move from first attraction, that first night together and the utter infatuation of Carmen and her unnamed girlfriend to this toxic, terrifying relationship is a slow build, because that is exactly what happens in cases of domestic abuse.

“She reads your stories, marvels at the beauty of your sentences. You tell her often how hysterically funny she is”.

Abuse is like a slow-acting poison, you don’t notice it at first until one incident, one comment or one action, changes everything and then it hits you all at once like a wave, or walking down the stairs at night feeling yourself fall as you assume there’s another step. The rose-tinted glasses slip and once you notice it, you can’t unsee it.

Every. Little. Detail.

As someone that was in an abusive relationship for 5 years, the more I read “In The Dreamhouse” the more I felt my late teens and early 20s replayed before my eyes. Now older, although not necessarily wiser, I look back on those years and, stepping into Carmen’s shoes through this book, I fall right back into my old hometown. If I close my eyes and think hard enough, I can still smell the mix of aftershave and rum. I can still hear the screams and see the punched walls. Stuck in my dream house as it caves in, begging for it to end, and when it did, I couldn’t help but feel guilty, survivors’ guilt. To this day, and on those dark days when one’s mind wanders, I can’t help but question, “Was it my fault?. Did I do something wrong to make this person act so cruel?”. 

Carmen writes about this guilt in the most beautifully honest and heart-wrenching way, and to add to it, the pre-conceptions society has of queer female relationships. Mixing both personal experiences under the weight of research and queer tropes (there is an excellent section on queer villains, horror, and science fiction). Domestic abuse is still a taboo subject in much of western culture, add a lesbian relationship into the mix and the world goes silent. Even within the LGBTQ+ community, a group of women who have experienced homophobic abuse by their friends, family, coworkers still cannot come to terms with the genuine threat other queer women can impose upon them. In fact, about 25% of LGBTQ+ people suffer through violent or threatening relationships with partners or ex-partners, which is about the same rate as is domestic abuse against heterosexual women.

Homophobia always casts queer women as promiscuous, lacking moral decency, and it has been in our interest to show the world otherwise. Carmen even goes to the extent of when talking about her ex-girlfriend to say “For fuck’s sake, stop making us look bad.”

Carmen highlights through extensive research and court trials that not only does our hetero-normative society cast a blind eye towards toxic queer relationships, so do fellow queer people. 

As a direct opposition to Hollywood’s depiction of queer women on screen through various tropes such as bury your gays “lesbian paradise” was formed. The notion that once you finally come out and be yourself, get your first girlfriend that everything IS sunshine and rainbows and pride parades and constant earth-shattering sex.

But this isn’t the case.

Just like any heterosexual relationship, queer relationships are not free from trauma and toxicity. Women can be both the victim and the villain.