Mexican Gothic
Silvia Moreno-Garcia, 2020
Random House
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525620785
Summary
An isolated mansion. A chillingly charismatic aristocrat. And a brave socialite drawn to expose their treacherous secrets.
After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside.
She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing.
But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.
Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son.
Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.
And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 25, 1981
• Where—Baja California, Mexico
• Education—M.A., University of British Columbia
• Currently—lives in Vancourer, British Columbia, Canada
Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a Mexican-born author who has adopted Canada as her home. Her novels include Gods of Jade and Shadow (2019), The Beautiful Ones (2017), Certain Dark Things (2016), Signal to Noise (2015), and the science fiction novella Prime Meridian (2018).
Moreno-Garciae has also edited several anthologies, including the World Fantasy Award-winning She Walks in Shadows (2015, aka Cthulhu's Daughters). She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[T]he turn from mannered mystery to twisted horror will seem as inevitable as the nightmare logic of a Grimm fairy tale. Yet Mexican Gothic has an ending that turns Western fairy tales upside down. In the process of surprising us one last time, Moreno-Garcia proves that it’s possible to create a believable female protagonist who defies… the patriarchy of her time… and to fight for what she knows is a more righteous future.
Bethanne Patrick - Los Angeles Time
High Place is an ominous presence, and Moreno-Garcia uses its grim atmosphere to great effect…. But this is a novel about powerful women…. It’s as if a supernatural power compels us to turn the pages of the gripping Mexican Gothic. The true identity of the Doyles and the fate of these women is an intoxicating mystery that allows us, for a little while, to forget the horror story taking place in the real world during the summer of Covid-19.
Carol Memmott - Washington Post
[A] thoroughly enjoyable, thought-provoking novel…. There is a gradual rise of dread… [that] never quite falls off, even at the end, which I loved for its satisfying ambiguity; this is a novel that will leave you wary even after the last page.… This is Silvia Moreno-Garcia's greatness as a storyteller: She makes you uneasy about invisible things by writing around them…. Mexican Gothic is a pitch-perfect Gothic novel.
Jessica P. Wick - NPR
[This] romp through the gothic genre is delightfully bonkers.… [With its] debt to the nightmarish horror and ornate language of H.P. Lovecraft… [r]eaders who find the usual country house mystery too tame… won’t have that problem here.
Publishers Weekly
Noemí confronts the predestined, secretive pathos of the family, hoping to rectify its corruption. This original, well-paced novel from Moreno-Garcia has great gothic elements with a little VanderMeer creativity thrown in. —Tina Panik, Avon Free P.L., CT
Library Journal
A shiver-inducing tale…The ever-present imagery of twisting vines and snakes swallowing their tails blends with ghostly memories of death and disease to create a fascinating atmosphere of dark dreams and intrigue.
Booklist
Moreno-Garcia offers a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror, set in 1950s Mexico.… Fans of gothic classics like Rebecca will be enthralled as long as they don’t mind a heaping dose of all-out horror.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for MEXICAN GOTHIC … then take off on your own:
1. How would you describe Noemi Taboada, the heroine of Mexican Gothic? As the novel progresses, in what ways does Noemi defy expectations of her image as a privileged socialite with which the story opens?
2. Noemi's cousin Catalina has claimed that High Place "stinks of decay, brims with every single evil and cruel sentiment." Is this a melodramatic hyperbole… or an apt description of High Place? How would you describe the Doyle county manor?
3. (Follow-up to Question 2) How would you describe the Doyle family, both past and present? Consider Howard, Virgil, and Francis. Also, Catalina? Is she a sterotypical damsel in distress?
4. If you're a gothic fiction fan (think Daphne du Maurier, Emily Bronte, or Mary Shelley), pick out some of the gothic elements that author Moreno-Garcia incorporates into her story. At what point, however, does gothic evolve into horror?
5. What do you make of Noemi's lurid dreams of Virgil. She dreams of him at night but finds him repugnant by day. What is going on?
5. Talk about the family's mysterious symbol: a circular snake swallowing its own tail, known as an ouroboros. Akin to a coat-of-arms, what does this signify for the family—along with the motto, "One is All." Also, what are the ways the ouroboros functions metaphorically within the framework of the novel itself?
6. Discuss the role of eugenics in this family, again, both past and present? How does Noemi learn that Catalina, too, has become part of the Doyle family's secrets?
7. What is the source of the Doyle family's power? How does it intersect with colonialism and racism?
8. Were you surprised at the story's finale? The ending is ambiguous: is it satisfyingly so? Or less than satisfying? What kind of an ending would you have hoped for?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)