Review: Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Noemí Taboada likes being escorted to glamorous parties by handsome men, and she has every anticipation that she can go on doing so — until her father orders her to go into the Mexican countryside to check on her cousin Catalina. Since Catalina’s marriage to Virgil Doyle — an Englishman and scion to a family that once owned a silver mine but has fallen on hard times — they have heard very little from her, until they receive a letter in which she begs them to come save her. There are ghosts in the walls, she says. They are speaking to her. Noemí packs her bags and heads to Catalina’s new home, High Place, and a Gothic novel ensues.

I may become a slight broken record over the course of this review, but let me say up front: This is a damn good example of a Gothic novel, and I know from Gothic novels. The first real proper grown-up book I ever read was Jane Eyre, and I periodically do a buddy-reread of it and Rebecca and feel the most exquisite pleasure about it. Though Mexican Gothic is very much its own creature, it pays beautiful homages to the Gothic novel tradition, from the long winding roads to the manor house to the Mrs Danvers-like figure of Florence Doyle (Catalina’s aunt-in-law), who insists that Noemí adhere to her many rules: No smoking; no going into town without permission; no talking during dinner; the list goes on and on, and Noemí breaks all of them. Virgil, who’s by turns friendly and menacing, has an anxious cousin named Francis and a deeply unpleasant father called Howard, who wants to talk to Noemí about eugenics and the relative merits of European nations (pure, good, smart) and indigenous people (maybe hardier question mark).

The longer Noemí stays at High Place, the less she understands the place. She begins having deeply unsettling dreams, and minor hallucinations that the wallpaper in the house is moving, writhing. She starts sleepwalking again, though she hasn’t sleepwalked since she was a little girl. She even starts to experience sporadic, unwanted lust for Virgil, who acts flirty and inappropriate with her at times. Meanwhile Catalina, the reason for Noemí’s visit, seems to fluctuate wildly between moods. One moment she’s calm and acquiescent, insisting that there’s nothing for Noemí to worry about, and the next moment she’s panicked and begging to be taken away from High Place.

This book is soooooo creepy. I read a fair few creepy-house stories in search of the exact high that Mexican Gothic gave me. As I was reading it, I was simultaneously saying a tiny prayer to God to send us the blessing of a Gothic novel renaissance led by authors of color. Though Mexican Gothic is absolutely classic in many of its tropes, and feels deeply satisfying for that reason if you’re a fan of the genre, the ghosts that haunt it aren’t just those of the family dead, but of extractive imperialism as a whole. The Doyle family’s history of using and abusing cheap Mexican labor in their silver mines — now defunct — proves to be inextricably linked with their whole fucking spooky situation; as does, unsurprisingly, Howard and Virgil Doyle’s unseemly interest in Noemí qua native of Mexico.

Here follow two paragraphs of spoilers, followed by an unspoilery final paragraph:

The book’s climax is also near flawless in execution.¹ *Stefan voice* It has everything: Eye-stabbings, secret passageways, a confrontation with the Final Horror at the Heart of this House, and, of course, setting the whole fucking house on fire on your way out. Again, like, truly all the best tropes of the Gothic novel genre, wound together in a way that felt new, unexpected, and terrifying.

I will add in particular that Silvia Moreno-Garcia has a line on the exact creepiest thing for me. At first I thought she was just doing the “things are creepier if they’re moist” which I have been saying for years and continue to vigorously endorse — but no! It’s much scarier than that! THINGS ARE CREEPIER IF THEY’RE FUNGUS. A couple of authors in recent years have kicked up the horror of their premise by adding mushroom body horror, and with some experience under my belt I can now report that mushroom creepiness gets me every time. I do a real, proper, full-body shudder every time I think about it. Who gave horror writers permission to add mushroom invasion to their bag of tricks? It is deeply inimical to me, a coward. I shall never sleep again probably.

As with all of Moreno-Garcia’s books, Mexican Gothic is a fast, immersive read — I got through it in a single sitting, partly because it was due back at the library because there are like 96 holds on it, but mostly because it sucked me in as soon as Mrs Danvers Florence Doyle showed up, and I had to find out what was going to happen. This is easily my favorite Moreno-Garcia book to date, and I can already tell you it’s going to be one of my best reads of 2020.