Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Mexican Gothic (Hardcover, 2020, Quercus)
Hardcover, 320 pages
English language
Published April 7, 2020 by Quercus.
An isolated mansion. A chillingly charismatic aristocrat. And a brave socialite drawn to expose their treacherous secrets. . . . From the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow comes “a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror” (Kirkus Reviews) set in glamorous 1950s Mexico.
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 …
An isolated mansion. A chillingly charismatic aristocrat. And a brave socialite drawn to expose their treacherous secrets. . . . From the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow comes “a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror” (Kirkus Reviews) set in glamorous 1950s Mexico.
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.
Very gothic old school style horror complete with a crumbling house up a mountain, shrouded in mist and riddled with mycelium. I found this very creepy and engrossing, and the details of the mystery at hand kept me wondering.
This ended up being the third of 4 stories I read this year that were all variations on the Fall of the House of Usher (including the original), and I think it's my favourite. The slow pace with which the protagonist (and by extension us the readers) learn what exactly is up with the house felt realistic and made for great tension because there's such a long period in which it's clear that something is Very Wrong but not what it is. And along the way Moreno-Garcia gets in some choice digs about what colonisers are and do, including to themselves and each other. Deliciously gruesome.
#SFFBookClub May 2023
It was interesting to read this book so soon after reading What Moves the Dead. I can see why Ursula Vernon wrote about it in her afterword as being a similar setup and recommended that everybody go read it immediately.
The book itself is immensely creepy and I found it very compelling. The plot setup is that socialite Noemí is asked by her powerful father to go investigate what's going on with her cousin Catalina's marriage in an isolated rural mansion. The creepy atmosphere is spectacularly well done: a decrepit remote mansion, very little electricity, locked windows, strange dreams, family secrets, suspicious local history, the overly strict housekeeper with too many rules (silence! no hot baths! no coffee!), also the household's obsession with eugenics and "superior races".
The book's pacing was excellent for me. There is a slow build of mystery and unexplainable occurrences. Backstory is slowly revealed, but there's …
It was interesting to read this book so soon after reading What Moves the Dead. I can see why Ursula Vernon wrote about it in her afterword as being a similar setup and recommended that everybody go read it immediately.
The book itself is immensely creepy and I found it very compelling. The plot setup is that socialite Noemí is asked by her powerful father to go investigate what's going on with her cousin Catalina's marriage in an isolated rural mansion. The creepy atmosphere is spectacularly well done: a decrepit remote mansion, very little electricity, locked windows, strange dreams, family secrets, suspicious local history, the overly strict housekeeper with too many rules (silence! no hot baths! no coffee!), also the household's obsession with eugenics and "superior races".
The book's pacing was excellent for me. There is a slow build of mystery and unexplainable occurrences. Backstory is slowly revealed, but there's more questions than answers and Noemí is not sure she can even trust her own experience. And then, suddenly, there's a gut punch reveal and the action shifts, leading into the climax of the book. The mystery reveal felt exceedingly well-crafted to me; rather than cheapening the spooky atmosphere, if anything everything got even creepier once the mask was off, and it fully justified all of the atmospheric details that led up to that point.
I won't write a lot because I'm afraid of giving spoilers. The other reviewers here summed up the book nicely. I only knew about this and read it because it is one of the books in this year's Canada Reads. I don't know how it fits the year's theme, and it doesn't feel at all Canadian (despite the nationality of the author), but that shouldn't take away from the book itself.
I understand that Mexican Gothic will be a TV series on Hulu! This is fantastic news, as it is absolutely perfect material for this sort of thing.
Some thoughts: it's a fun, pulpy ride! I was always a huge fan of The House on Haunted Hill (both the original and the remake), so this was a great time. I was confused, though, at the repeated references that the book took place in the 1950s, as there was really nothing …
I won't write a lot because I'm afraid of giving spoilers. The other reviewers here summed up the book nicely. I only knew about this and read it because it is one of the books in this year's Canada Reads. I don't know how it fits the year's theme, and it doesn't feel at all Canadian (despite the nationality of the author), but that shouldn't take away from the book itself.
I understand that Mexican Gothic will be a TV series on Hulu! This is fantastic news, as it is absolutely perfect material for this sort of thing.
Some thoughts: it's a fun, pulpy ride! I was always a huge fan of The House on Haunted Hill (both the original and the remake), so this was a great time. I was confused, though, at the repeated references that the book took place in the 1950s, as there was really nothing else (dialogue, descriptions, idioms, etc) that suggested that it took place at that time. The author's insistence of this fact was like a slap in the face each time because I just didn't believe it. Just set it in 2015 and we're all good.
I was drawn in quickly by the characters and the plot. I appreciated the themes about colonialism that were interwoven throughout. I found the ending both very creative and satisfying!
Starts slow but eventually delivers a weird and ultimately satisfying tale of nightmarish horrors and awakening to the face the realities of the world with eyes wide open.
Mareno-Garcia presents a lush and atmospheric excursion into the gothic genre. Noemí Taboada is a wealthy strong-willed Mexican socialite who finds herself playing the uncanny hero after receiving a bewildering letter from her cousin, Catalina. The letter propels Noemí to travel to her cousin’s new home, High Place – an isolated English-style mansion – to check on Catalina’s mysterious behavior. Noemi is greeted by moldy wallpaper and in-laws bent on eugenics. Her stay at High Place only feels more and more menacing with each passing night as the unimaginable horrors become more and more richly detailed. Recommended for avid horror or suspense readers who just finished and loved “The Death of Jane Larence” by Caitlin Startling or “Tripping Arcadia” by Kit Mayquist for the creepy underpinnings and culturally diverse characters.
Like Nancy Drew and Scooby-Doo, but with an unfortunate shot of gross-out horror.
I loved the setting and the main character, and would be happy (no, ecstatic) to read more of Noemí Taboada's adventures and hijinks and supernatural mysteries.
But while the ending is probably fine for many, it's not my cup of tea. I also felt like the first half of so of the book was a bit too slow, leaving the last half to race by at breakneck pace in order to cover all the ground it needed to cover.
Still, the indefatigable, ingenious, and dangerously charming main character was more than worth my quibbles with the ending. I hope she returns.
Last night, ten to fifteen minutes of light pre-bed reading turned into an hour and a half of obsessive page turning. Today, even in daylight, my own victorian house feels creepy and weird. I blame the San Francisco fog.
A quick précis of the plot: Noemí's father gets a concerning letter from her newlywed cousin Catalina. He dispatches Noemí to visit her and investigate, and so she treks to rural Hidalgo and Catalina's new home, a ramshackle decaying old-money mansion owned by the local mining family. Our mystery starts with "what's wrong with Catalina?", and quickly spirals into "what's wrong with this house?" and "what's wrong with this family?"
Every line in this novel is building something: either putting a new brick into the wall of its immersive setting, or bringing the main character Noemí to life, or putting her into jeopardy. The creepy, ramshackle old mansion that's at the …
Last night, ten to fifteen minutes of light pre-bed reading turned into an hour and a half of obsessive page turning. Today, even in daylight, my own victorian house feels creepy and weird. I blame the San Francisco fog.
A quick précis of the plot: Noemí's father gets a concerning letter from her newlywed cousin Catalina. He dispatches Noemí to visit her and investigate, and so she treks to rural Hidalgo and Catalina's new home, a ramshackle decaying old-money mansion owned by the local mining family. Our mystery starts with "what's wrong with Catalina?", and quickly spirals into "what's wrong with this house?" and "what's wrong with this family?"
Every line in this novel is building something: either putting a new brick into the wall of its immersive setting, or bringing the main character Noemí to life, or putting her into jeopardy. The creepy, ramshackle old mansion that's at the heart of this story is a character in its own right. I can vividly imagine this tiny postcolonial mining town, and the mist and the trees and even the mushrooms that dot the cemetery.
And the end result of all that methodical construction is a novel that really holds together. I was trying to figure out what was going on with Catalina right alongside Noemí. As the tension built, I felt it in my shoulders and neck. And then I was caught flat-footed and slack-jawed by the plot, which is how I wound up spending my evening and early morning reading when I really ought to have been asleep.
One tiny, final observation that needs to be hidden behind a spoiler tag: I already didn't like mushrooms.
