The prologue of In the Dream House explores the idea of “archival silence,” the idea that the stories of marginalized people, including queer people, are often left out of written history. Machado hopes this memoir helps more people to understand that queer relationships can also be abusive. The story regularly switches between past tense, in which Machado tells the story of her relationship with the woman in the Dream House, and present tense, in which she analyzes that story while reflecting on her life before and after it, and wishing she could warn her past self about oncoming danger.
Machado is studying creative writing at grad school in Iowa City when she meets the woman from the Dream House. She’s immediately attracted to the woman and soon learns that she’s in an open relationship. They grow closer to each other and start to have sex regularly, though the woman tells Machado that they can’t fall in love. Machado takes the woman on a road trip to Savannah over spring break, during which the woman frequently wanders off to call her girlfriend, Val. A week later, the woman tells Machado she loves her, and Machado says that she does, too.
In the present, Machado reflects on a close relationship she had with a pastor called Joel when she was a fervently Christian teenager. Machado and Joel often talked about personal subjects in Joel’s office with the doors closed, and eventually they began to meet outside of church, late at night. When Machado went to college, she kissed a boy for the first time, and when she called Joel to tell him about this, he told her she should ask for forgiveness. Machado considers the conflicting messages she received during her time in the church as a main reason for the confusion that shaped many of her romantic relationships.
Back in the past, the woman from the Dream House gets accepted into a creative writing program in Indiana. She proposes that she, Val, and Machado enter into a polyamorous relationship. Meanwhile, she becomes more aggressive, occasionally verbally abusing Machado. (In the present, Machado reflects on pop culture narratives about queer villains, proposing that queer representation should be as broad and complex as possible: queer people are not only villains, but they’re not just heroes, either.)
Machado and the woman from the Dream House go on another road trip, this time to Florida to visit the woman’s parents. On the way, they stop in D.C. and meet Machado’s college friends, some of whom treat the woman coldly. In Florida, Machado and the woman quarrel about insignificant things. At one point, Machado walks away; when the woman finds her, she grips her so tightly that it hurts. Later, they walk in on the woman’s parents fighting. The woman’s father appears to physically threaten her mother. The woman tells Machado she’s worried she might be like her father.
The woman from the Dream House tells Machado she’s broken up with Val. Machado feels like she’s won and begins to feel secure and worthy of love. But her narration switches to the present, in which she explores the many ways the Dream House seems like a haunted house. Back in the past, the woman becomes territorial, constantly pressuring Machado to prove she hasn’t had sex with various, often random people. The woman also exhibits other worrying behavior like reckless driving. One night, after almost falling asleep at the wheel (when Machado only let her drive because she intimidated her with verbal abuse), the woman seems to forget she put Machado in any danger.
Machado begins to feel constantly unwell and on the verge of tears. The woman tells her to stop singing and loves getting her to list her flaws. The woman’s obsession with winning means they’re barely able to communicate with each other. (Present-day Machado interjects to say that most forms of domestic abuse have no legal consequences.) The woman goes on a ski trip with her parents, during which she seems to break up with Machado over the phone before immediately calling back and insisting the break-up never happened.
In the present, Machado reflects on significant moments in her childhood and college years. One was when her parents unscrewed her doorknob after a fight, which meant she had no way to feel secure in her bedroom. Another was when Machado’s mother adopted a nervous, listless dog. When Machado opened the door and tried to set the dog free, it just lay down, not realizing it could leave.
Back in the past, Machado stays at the Dream House for a few weeks over Christmas, during which she goes bowling with the woman and her friends. They agree that the woman will drive home, so Machado drinks several beers before realizing that the woman is drunk. They take a cab home. The woman insults Machado incessantly for the whole journey. When they arrive home, the woman starts screaming and throwing things at Machado. Machado runs to the bathroom and locks the door. After the fight ends, the woman asks Machado why she seems upset. Another similar incident occurs a few days later, after which the woman says she doesn’t remember screaming at Machado. On her flight back to Iowa, Machado resolves to speak out about her abusive relationship, but by the time the plane lands, she’s decided to conceal the truth about the abuse.
Machado begins to obsess about stories of demonic possession and does her own research to find an explanation for her partner’s violent bouts and memory loss. In the present, she explores historical legal cases involving domestic violence between two female partners. Only in the 1980s did the courts begin to treat lesbian domestic abuse as a serious matter.
Back in the past, Machado experiences a period of creative productivity despite her declining mental health. The stories she writes are all fragmented and avoid their central issues. The woman’s abusive behavior becomes a cycle from which Machado feels she can’t escape. She starts to fantasize about dying in a freak accident.
One night, Machado sits down to watch a movie with her roommates. Tired and feeling safer and more content than she can remember feeling all year, she immediately falls asleep and wakes up at the end credits to find a number of texts and missed calls from the woman from the Dream House. When she calls back, the woman accuses her of having had sex with someone else. Frantic, Machado assures her she can prove she didn’t.
After making plans to move back to Iowa and live with Machado, the woman from the Dream House tells Machado she’s in love with someone else, but she says she and Machado can work through it. Soon after that, though, she breaks up with Machado. A few weeks later, she tells Machado she’s made a mistake, and the two get back together only to break up again. Machado calls Val and the two apologize to each other. She goes to California for a writing workshop, during which she starts to talk to Val frequently. On her drive back to Iowa, she picks Val up and they go on a scenic road trip and become romantic partners. (Eventually, Val and Machado will marry.)
When Machado tries to tell people about her abusive relationship, they often don’t believe her or try to ignore her. The woman from the Dream House keeps trying to contact her. Machado wishes she had physical proof of the abuse, though she knows that’s not something she should want. For years after their break-up, she has nightmares in which the woman follows her. Looking back from the present as she writes, she wishes she could reassure her younger self that she’d be okay.
