Nominated for the National Book Award Fiction Prize 2017 and the International Dylan Thomas Prize 2018, Carmen Maria Machado's provocative debut blurs the boundaries between magical realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. A woman refuses to remove the mysterious green ribbon from her neck, which her husband keeps trying to take off. A woman recounts her sexual encounters while a plague sweeps across the earth. A mall saleswoman makes a terrifying discovery about the clothes in a store. A woman's weight loss after surgery leads to an unwanted houseguest. A dark, shimmering insight into femininity, "Her Body and Other Parties" is wicked and exquisite.

"A writer of rare daring... the formal experimentation and erotic fearlessness of the stories have a tattered splendor, and the enthusiasm with which she reinvents horror, SF, and fairy tale motifs." - Guardian

"A love letter to a stubborn genre that refuses to gentrify. This book is a wild thing, covered in sequins and scales, glowing with the influence of fabulists like Angela Carter, Kelly Link, and Helen Oyeyemi, and drawing from science fiction, queer theory, and horror..." - New York Times

Carmen Maria Machado is a writer, critic, and essayist whose work has appeared in various esteemed publications. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and has received fellowships and residencies from several foundations. She is the artist in residence at the University of Pennsylvania and lives with her partner in Philadelphia.