MALA SEASON 2: CARMEN
Carmen Maria Machado and Tanaïs
Carmen Maria Machado's electric and wrenching memoir IN THE DREAM HOUSE (GRAYWOLF 2019) details her abusive relationship with a charismatic and controlling lover in an inventive dreamscape that imagines "the dream house" as different metaphors that helped Machado make sense and ultimately leave this domestic violence. On December 19, MALA: Memory as a Living Art creator Tanaïs and Carmen Maria Machado spoke about the olfactory notes in the book at the Institute of Art & Olfaction (IAO) in Los Angeles, as a live perfuming and recording session.
Special thanks to The Institute for Art & Olfaction, DubLab, Graywolf Press, Minetta Rogers, Bennett Shaeffer, Saskia Wilson-Brown and to all those who attended the live perfuming event at IAO.
Music: Makaya McCraven, “People’s Anthem” courtesy of International Anthem
Photo: Saskia Wilson-Brown, IAO
ABOUT THE MEMOIR
“In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming.
And it’s that struggle that gives the book its original structure: each chapter is driven by its own narrative trope—the haunted house, erotica, the bildungsroman—through which Machado holds the events up to the light and examines them from different angles. She looks back at her religious adolescence, unpacks the stereotype of lesbian relationships as safe and utopian, and widens the view with essayistic explorations of the history and reality of abuse in queer relationships.”
Perfume Notes & Corresponding Pages
Dream House as Inciting Incident Pg. 15 — Tea
Dream House as Lesbian Cult Classic Pg. 20 — Lavender
Dream House as Road Trip to Savannah Pg. 25 — Oakmoss
Dream House as Man vs Nature Pg 52 — Virginia cedar — reminiscent of pencil shavings / library book pages
Dream House as Pathetic Fallacy Pg. 100 — Terrasol
Dream House as Shipwreck Pg. 159 — Frankincense & Myrrh
Dream House as the Pool of Tears Pg. 190 — Salt Accord
Dream House as Cabin in the Woods — Pg. 229 — Fir Needle