You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by emtees
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Silvia Moreno-Garcia is becoming one of my favorite authors. Each of her books is very different from the last but they all have a strong sense of place and time and incredible characters, especially the female leads. She plays a lot with genre and her characters aren’t usually the types who would be considered heroines, but I love seeing the face the unique, creative situations Moreno-Garcia puts them in.
Noemi is a Mexican debutante. Hers is a life of parties, dances and flitting from one college major to another. Deep down, Noemi believes she is meant for more than just an ordinary life of marriage, motherhood and society events, but there is nothing in her day to day life that would seem to be setting her up to be a hero. But when she receives a letter from her cousin Catalina, who recently married an Englishman she’d just met and moved with him to the remote estate of High Place, Noemi is concerned for her cousin’s mental state. So is her father, the family patriarch, who sends Noemi to High Place to figure out exactly what is wrong with Catalina and what the family can do. But at High Place, Noemi quickly discovers that the problem goes beyond a new marriage or a bout of tuberculosis, though these are the excuses the Doyle family provides for Catalina’s confused, agitated state. Noemi is sure something is seriously wrong, but it isn’t easy to tell what it is. The Doyles are strange, at times hostile and obsessed with bloodlines and eugenics; the house staff barely speak; the family doctor dismisses Noemi’s concerns in the most condescending way possible. And then there is the house itself: enormous, grim and seemingly rotting away. From her first night at High Place, Noemi begins to have strange dreams, as though the house, or perhaps its previous occupants, are trying to warn her away. But while Noemi never fancied herself a rescuer, she is determined not to leave Catalina behind in a place like this, even if it means taking on High Place itself and the dark, twisted and horrifying history of the Doyle family.
Moreno-Garcia takes the classic tropes of the English gothic “house novel” and transports them to mid-twentieth century Mexico with astonishing results. High Place is every bit as intriguing and disturbing as all those mansions on the moors, but with a distinct Mexican flavor to its history and its threat. The Doyles are a proper Gothic family, with their twisted family tree and generations worth of secrets, but their history as white Englishmen living among the native population of Mexico, obsessing over the “purity” of their blood and their superiority to everyone around them, gives them a resonance in the real world. Their disdain-disguised-as-fetishization immediately sets Noemi in opposition to them (the leader of the family, Howard, comments in their very first meeting on how Noemi, who has native heritage, is darker-skinned than the mostly-European Catalina.) As Noemi learns more about the Doyles’ family background, she uncovers a story of exploitation that goes back well into the region’s history. At the same time, there is more than just the ghosts of family and colonization at play here; there is an element that is… scientific is probably stretching it, but the dangers Noemi faces are not what she thinks and I gasped out loud when I realized where Moreno-Garcia was really going with the fantasy elements of the story.
There are some great relationships in this book, though I can’t really talk about them without spoilers, since Moreno-Garcia keeps you guessing right up to the end about who Noemi can trust. But I can say that I just loved Noemi’s character. She’s far from a perfect character - she is beautiful and charming and extremely aware of it, having spent her whole life essentially getting what she wanted just by smiling, but this isn’t the kind of story that punishes her for it. Instead, we are also shown that Noemi is smart and loyal and we get to watch her grow enormously while still remaining who she was in the beginning. I liked that a lot. The story ends on a slightly ominous, unresolved note that leaves you wondering just how much Noemi’s adventure will continue to shape her life.
Noemi is a Mexican debutante. Hers is a life of parties, dances and flitting from one college major to another. Deep down, Noemi believes she is meant for more than just an ordinary life of marriage, motherhood and society events, but there is nothing in her day to day life that would seem to be setting her up to be a hero. But when she receives a letter from her cousin Catalina, who recently married an Englishman she’d just met and moved with him to the remote estate of High Place, Noemi is concerned for her cousin’s mental state. So is her father, the family patriarch, who sends Noemi to High Place to figure out exactly what is wrong with Catalina and what the family can do. But at High Place, Noemi quickly discovers that the problem goes beyond a new marriage or a bout of tuberculosis, though these are the excuses the Doyle family provides for Catalina’s confused, agitated state. Noemi is sure something is seriously wrong, but it isn’t easy to tell what it is. The Doyles are strange, at times hostile and obsessed with bloodlines and eugenics; the house staff barely speak; the family doctor dismisses Noemi’s concerns in the most condescending way possible. And then there is the house itself: enormous, grim and seemingly rotting away. From her first night at High Place, Noemi begins to have strange dreams, as though the house, or perhaps its previous occupants, are trying to warn her away. But while Noemi never fancied herself a rescuer, she is determined not to leave Catalina behind in a place like this, even if it means taking on High Place itself and the dark, twisted and horrifying history of the Doyle family.
Moreno-Garcia takes the classic tropes of the English gothic “house novel” and transports them to mid-twentieth century Mexico with astonishing results. High Place is every bit as intriguing and disturbing as all those mansions on the moors, but with a distinct Mexican flavor to its history and its threat. The Doyles are a proper Gothic family, with their twisted family tree and generations worth of secrets, but their history as white Englishmen living among the native population of Mexico, obsessing over the “purity” of their blood and their superiority to everyone around them, gives them a resonance in the real world. Their disdain-disguised-as-fetishization immediately sets Noemi in opposition to them (the leader of the family, Howard, comments in their very first meeting on how Noemi, who has native heritage, is darker-skinned than the mostly-European Catalina.) As Noemi learns more about the Doyles’ family background, she uncovers a story of exploitation that goes back well into the region’s history. At the same time, there is more than just the ghosts of family and colonization at play here; there is an element that is… scientific is probably stretching it, but the dangers Noemi faces are not what she thinks and I gasped out loud when I realized where Moreno-Garcia was really going with the fantasy elements of the story.
There are some great relationships in this book, though I can’t really talk about them without spoilers, since Moreno-Garcia keeps you guessing right up to the end about who Noemi can trust. But I can say that I just loved Noemi’s character. She’s far from a perfect character - she is beautiful and charming and extremely aware of it, having spent her whole life essentially getting what she wanted just by smiling, but this isn’t the kind of story that punishes her for it. Instead, we are also shown that Noemi is smart and loyal and we get to watch her grow enormously while still remaining who she was in the beginning. I liked that a lot. The story ends on a slightly ominous, unresolved note that leaves you wondering just how much Noemi’s adventure will continue to shape her life.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Incest, Racism