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A review by flying_monkey
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
I've enjoyed the other fictions I've read by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and, at least when I was younger, I was partial to a bit of gothic horror, so I was looking forward to this. And it didn't disappoint. If you want a tl;dr pitch, this is Rebecca meets Crimson Peaks in post-colonial Mexico.
The set-up is a classic situation: Noemí Taboada is a young, beautiful wealthy socialite in Mexico City in maybe the 1950s (it's not entirely clear and it could be earlier). Although she lives a deliberately frivolous life, behind the party frocks and cocktails, she is actually an independent and intelligent woman who wants to study anthropology, a subject that certainly plays a role in the story that follows, not least because Noemí herself is of indigenous descent on at least half of her family tree. But Noemí's indulgent life comes to an abrupt end when she is sent by her domineering father to inquire into the health and wellbeing of her slightly older cousin, Catalina, who got married very suddenly a few years before to the apparently disreputable descendant of an eccentric English silver-mine owning family, the Doyles, who live in a remote mansion in the interior of the country near their abandoned mines.
The house is the classic haunted mansion, and very much a Mandalay, and the family make The Adams Family look completely normal. The house is run by Florence, an strict spinster obsessed with order. The listless and haunted Catalina is married to Virgil, a handsome and magnetically sexual but clearly nasty man, who tries to get his hooks into Noemí as soon as she arrives. However Noemí finds herself more drawn to his somewhat fey and intellectual brother, Francis, who is a botanist and mycologist - although maybe not initally at least, a fun guy to be with. Ruling over the family is the dying patriarch, Howard, a very old, tremendously creepy, loathsome, foul-smelling creature, who inabits the bedroom at the top of the house, and whose every groan and whim must be catered to. But the most important character of all is the house, and more accurately the whole colonial family, alive and dead, that is surrounds, embodies... and, as Noemí soon discovers, imprisons.
There is so much more, which I can't discuss without giving away too much, but if I say that this bizarre English family are obsessed with eugenics and white superiority, you will understand that colonialism and race and their legacies in Mexico play a large part in this too, which adds a seriousness to the usual gothic tropes that also revitalizes them. All in all, this is a really strong book with a sympathetic heroine and well-drawn characters (even the minor ones) and while there are a few places where I winced at word choice or phrasing, the writing is excellent too.
The set-up is a classic situation: Noemí Taboada is a young, beautiful wealthy socialite in Mexico City in maybe the 1950s (it's not entirely clear and it could be earlier). Although she lives a deliberately frivolous life, behind the party frocks and cocktails, she is actually an independent and intelligent woman who wants to study anthropology, a subject that certainly plays a role in the story that follows, not least because Noemí herself is of indigenous descent on at least half of her family tree. But Noemí's indulgent life comes to an abrupt end when she is sent by her domineering father to inquire into the health and wellbeing of her slightly older cousin, Catalina, who got married very suddenly a few years before to the apparently disreputable descendant of an eccentric English silver-mine owning family, the Doyles, who live in a remote mansion in the interior of the country near their abandoned mines.
The house is the classic haunted mansion, and very much a Mandalay, and the family make The Adams Family look completely normal. The house is run by Florence, an strict spinster obsessed with order. The listless and haunted Catalina is married to Virgil, a handsome and magnetically sexual but clearly nasty man, who tries to get his hooks into Noemí as soon as she arrives. However Noemí finds herself more drawn to his somewhat fey and intellectual brother, Francis, who is a botanist and mycologist - although maybe not initally at least, a fun guy to be with. Ruling over the family is the dying patriarch, Howard, a very old, tremendously creepy, loathsome, foul-smelling creature, who inabits the bedroom at the top of the house, and whose every groan and whim must be catered to. But the most important character of all is the house, and more accurately the whole colonial family, alive and dead, that is surrounds, embodies... and, as Noemí soon discovers, imprisons.
There is so much more, which I can't discuss without giving away too much, but if I say that this bizarre English family are obsessed with eugenics and white superiority, you will understand that colonialism and race and their legacies in Mexico play a large part in this too, which adds a seriousness to the usual gothic tropes that also revitalizes them. All in all, this is a really strong book with a sympathetic heroine and well-drawn characters (even the minor ones) and while there are a few places where I winced at word choice or phrasing, the writing is excellent too.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault and Violence
Moderate: Death