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Spend April with Carmen Maria Machado’s haunting Her Body and Other Parties

The Vox Book Club’s April pick is a ferociously smart set of short stories that read like fairy tales for the 21st century.

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Left, Graywolf. Right, Art Streiber.
Constance Grady
Constance Grady is a senior correspondent on the Culture team for Vox, where since 2016 she has covered books, publishing, gender, celebrity analysis, and theater.

The Vox Book Club is linking to Bookshop.org to support local and independent booksellers.

Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties is one of those books you just never stop thinking about. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since I first picked it up five years ago — which is why it’s the Vox Book Club’s pick for April 2022.

Eerie and unsettling, this short story collection has the dark beauty of an Angela Carter fairy tale and an animating force that’s all Machado’s own. In stories that riff on urban legends, dystopian fiction, and Law & Order: SVU, Machado returns again and again to the fleshy, porous, unbounded bodies of her heroines — and to all the other parties who feel entitled to them.

Join the Vox Book Club as we spend April exploring Her Body and Other Parties. At the end of the month, we’ll meet Machado live on Zoom, and you can RSVP here. In the meantime, subscribe to the Vox Book Club newsletter to make sure you don’t miss anything.

The full Vox Book Club schedule for April 2022

Friday, April 15: Discussion post on Her Body and Other Parties published to Vox.com

Thursday, April 28, 5 pm ET: Virtual live event with author Carmen Maria Machado. Reader questions are encouraged!

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