Join us to discuss an LGBTQ+ themed book each month with leader Christopher Proctor, IU Southeast Librarian. This discussion is open to all adults, members of the LGBTQ+ community and allies are welcome. We meet in person at the Floyd County Library’s Auditorium or online via Zoom. You’ll receive a link to the Zoom meeting when you register. Print copies of the books are available at the Upper Customer Service Desk and at IUS. The book is also available on ebook and downloadable audiobook from the Indiana Digital Library. 

Synopsis:

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. Machado's dire narrative is leavened with her characteristic wit, playfulness, and openness to inquiry. She casts a critical eye over legal proceedings, fairy tales, Star Trek, and Disney villains, as well as iconic works of film and fiction. The result is a wrenching, riveting book that explodes our ideas about what a memoir can do and be.