Lead Review
- Book: Mexican Gothic
- Location: Baja California
- Author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Over the last few months I have read quite a few positive reviews for the novel, set in 1950s Mexico, at an estate linked to an erstwhile British-run silver mining company, high in the mountains. The building is text book spooky Victorian and the family members are an eclectic mix of curious individuals, who are each leading a strange life, incarcerated in their spookily atmospheric surrounds, a long way away from civilisation. Part Hammer Horror, part Addams family – or as the Guardian newspaper puts it – Lovecraft meets the Brontës in Latin America. The setting is perfect for the storyline and evoking this ghostly and atmospheric backdrop is something the author does superbly well. And. There are plenty of comparisons to Jane Eyre.
I confess that this took me out of my comfort zone, I am not naturally drawn to the gothic/horror genre but I have to say it was the cover that swung me in the book’s favour; that, and also because it was set in Mexico. Just see, the power of the book cover ad location!
Catalina is living with her husband Virgil Doyle, in the misty mountains near El Triunfo in the family mansion, where patriarch Howard Doyle is still wheezing away his days on his looming death bed. The family have mined the silver in the area for several generations. Catalina has sent a letter to her cousin Noemí’s family in Mexico City and Noemí is despatched to check on the health and well-being of Catalina. It seems that she might be experiencing psychological disturbance.
Noemí arrives and almost immediately a shiver runs down her spine. It is a dank and dreary building, and the household is ruled with an iron fist (absolutely no speaking over dinner), with sharp-tongued Florence as at the helm.
As Noemí delves deeper, she discovers all kinds of horrors and mysteries – and death.
It is a reflective storyline, leaving the reader to ponder whether the house is sick or whether the sins of the ancestors – colonisers plundering the land for its resources – are being visited upon this generation.
I was enthralled by the first third of the book, the writing and storytelling fully drew me in and thereafter it levelled out. The longer she stays, the more Noemí sinks into the bowels of the sinister clutch of the house and its occupants. She starts to sleep walk, apparently, and the blur between reality and ghostly adventures starts to add confusion to her days. Soon thereafter it goes into more otherworldly realms. This is not my genre of choice and sometimes one just needs to step out of one’s comfort zone and expand one’s horizons. In many ways I am very glad I have read it. The New Yorker says its addictive prose “..is as easy to slurp down as a poisoned cordial…” It is indeed!
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