A review by starrysteph
Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

adventurous challenging dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Silver Nitrate is a smoldering suspense with messy characters – I couldn’t look away, but occasionally felt bogged down by exposition. 

We follow Montserrat & Tristán, friends who are both stumbling in their careers in the film industry. Montserrat is a brilliant sound editor who has been pushed out of job after job by the men in charge. And Tristán can’t quite get his soap opera charm back ever since a tragic death. The pair use each other in messy ways, but always find each other in the end.

Enter legendary horror director Abel Urueta. After a chance meeting, Abel shares the secrets of his missing unfinished film. He claims a Nazi occultist was using the movie to craft a spell, but after his death it was abandoned and everyone involved was cursed. As the trio work together to finish the film and lift the curse, the dark magic surrounding the project starts to seem very, very real.

It’s an atmospheric read, often propelled forward by Moreno-Garcia’s clear adoration of (and wealth of knowledge on) horror media. But I think the strength of the story is in Montserrat and Tristán’s relationship.

They’re sometimes callous and toxic to each other; they often fall flat and make poor decisions. Tristán in particular takes advantage of Montserrat’s friendship and loyalty. And yet they’re incredibly compelling, and even though I often wanted to knock some sense into them, I was also fiercely rooting for them as a pair. The story contains a lot of ugliness and darkness, but the love of these two friends still stands out. 

I enjoyed the explorations of ritual, of performance, of past trauma through hauntings. However, the scenes were often slowed down by heavy exposition and explanations to readers. I’m all for slow pacing and slow-rising tension, but I would have preferred that time watching our characters instead of going into so many specifics. The supernatural arc felt clear to me from the start, and some of the minor details detracted from it.

The dark arc involves some clever twists on white supremacist-backed notions of ‘ancient aliens’ and those sorts of conspiracies (ie. the belief that indigenous populations were not capable of great architectural, etc. designs). It is sort of strange that though the book mentions the villain is a Nazi on many different occasions, it never quite addresses what that means. We delve into his specific beliefs around the ‘great Aryan race’ and his racism and colorism, but not how that lands with his followers in the 1990s. His beliefs are refuted by the plot, but what does it mean that his spell requires a captive audience? What does it mean for his followers to exist, whether or not their leader is alive, whether or not the magic is ‘real’ or ‘successful’? Just felt like some missed opportunities here where the fact that he was a Nazi was dropped in to signify him as this Ultra Evil, but it’s never deeply unpacked. 

Silver Nitrate was definitely a ride – and I look forward to working my way through the rest of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s works.

CW: murder, death, blood, gore, racism, car accident, fire, misogyny, grief, addiction, colonization, ableism, drug use, xenophobia, antisemitism, body horror, chronic illness, suicidal thoughts, religious bigotry, vomit, cultural appropriation, animal death, classism, biphobia

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