Sharon's Book & Wine Club - October 2020

From the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow comes a novel set in glamorous 1950s Mexico.

After receiving a frantic letter from her newlywed 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.
Goodreads

Moreno-Garcia offers a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror, set in 1950s Mexico.

Inquisitive 22-year-old socialite and anthropology enthusiast Noemí Taboada adores beautiful clothes and nights on the town in Mexico City with a bevy of handsome suitors, but her carefree existence is cut short when her father shows her a disturbing letter from her cousin Catalina, who recently married fair-haired and blue-eyed Virgil Doyle, who comes from a prominent English mining family that built their now-dwindling fortune on the backs of Indigenous laborers. Catalina lives in High Place, the Doyle family’s crumbling mansion near the former mining town of El Triunfo. In the letter, Catalina begs for Noemí’s help, claiming that she is “bound, threads like iron through my mind and my skin,” and that High Place is “sick with rot, stinks of decay, brims with every single evil and cruel sentiment.” Upon Noemí’s arrival at High Place, she’s struck by the Doyle family’s cool reception of her and their unabashed racism. She’s alarmed by the once-vibrant Catalina’s listless state and by the enigmatic Virgil and his ancient, leering father, Howard. Nightmares, hallucinations, and phantasmagoric dreams of golden dust and fleshy bodies plague Noemí, and it becomes apparent that the Doyles haven’t left their blood-soaked legacy behind. Luckily, the brave Noemí is no delicate flower, and she’ll need all her wits about her for the battle ahead. Moreno-Garcia weaves elements of Mexican folklore with themes of decay, sacrifice, and rebirth, casting a dark spell all the way to the visceral and heart-pounding finale.

Fans of gothic classics like Rebecca will be enthralled as long as they don’t mind a heaping dose of all-out horror.

Kirkus

Gothic horror tales — from the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe to Jordan Peele’s 2017 film Get Out — are almost always about escape. Run away! Run away from demons and haunted houses; from graveyards and ghouls; from racism and sexism.

Social criticism is embedded within the Gothic formula, a truth that Silvia Moreno-Garcia certainly appreciates. Her new novel, Mexican Gothic, is a ghastly treat to read, but this supernatural escape tale isn’t simply escapist. Set in Mexico in 1950, when women weren’t yet allowed to vote, Mexican Gothic explores how, for its independent female characters, marriage threatens to be a premature burial.

The heroine of Mexican Gothic is Noemí Taboada, a beautiful socialite given to wearing luscious full-skirted purple gowns and good furs. Noemí, we’re told, “was expected to devote her time to the twin pursuits of leisure and husband hunting.”

Glittering as she is, however, Noemí harbors ambitions to attend the National University for a masters in anthropology. Of course, her parents object. But, one night her father summons her home early from a party to offer her a deal: A year ago, Noemí’s orphaned cousin, Catalina, impulsively married a man from an old Anglo family who made their fortune long ago in silver mining. Catalina’s new husband whisked her off to a remote part of Mexico and little has been heard from her since. Now, however, a letter has arrived in which Catalina sounds insane, claiming she’s being poisoned and that the walls of the ancestral mansion are binding her with “threads like iron through [her] mind and … skin.” She begs Noemí to get her out.

Noemí’s father assumes this is just another case of female hysteria, but he doesn’t want the family name sullied by a divorce. He orders Noemí to travel to her cousin and calm her down. In return, he’ll consider allowing Noemí to attend the university. Noemí sets out on a mission to prove her worth to her father.

What ensues is an inspired mash-up of Jane Eyre, Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, Dracula, Rebecca and that 1958 classic sci-fi movie, The Blob. Moreno-Garcia has a sharp ear for the slightly antiquated and sinister language of the Gothic. For instance, Noemí is picked up at the local train station by Catalina’s brother-in-law, a young man named Francis. Noemí will later describe him as, “very thin, his face … that of a plaster saint haunted by his impending martyrdom.”

The classic set piece scene where Noemí spies High Place, the family mansion, for the first time is also far from reassuring:

“… the house seemed to leap out of the mist to greet them with eager arms. It was so odd! It looked absolutely Victorian in construction, with its broken shingles, elaborate ornamentation, and dirty bay windows. …

It’s the abandoned shell of a snail, [Noemí] told herself …

Actually, it’s even more grotesque than that, as Noemí and we readers will find out. Inside, the mansion all is silent: The library is filled with rotting books; the windows locked and curtains drawn. Noemí thinks to herself that the silent house “was like a dress lined with lead.”

She’s mostly kept away from Catalina, who seems sedated, while Catalina’s charismatic husband grows increasingly lecherous in his attentions. But, by far, the most disturbing family member is the dying patriarch, Howard Doyle, who, we’re told, upon meeting Noemí, “vivisect[s] the young woman with his gaze” and declares, “You are much darker than your cousin, Miss Taboada.”

It turns out old Doyle is a raging eugenicist, one who believes mixed-race people like Noemí are inferior. But, perhaps, not without their uses.

Moreno-Garcia exquisitely paces this creeper so that as Noemí’s dread of the Doyle family mounts, so, too, does her fight-or-flight feminist resolve. The secret of High Place has to do with the exploitation of women, of native peoples by white interlopers, and with mushrooms, those fleshy fungi that thrive in the damp and dark.

Be forewarned: Like most contemporary horror tales, Mexican Gothic starts out suggestive and atmospheric, but becomes more grisly — shall we say, more meaty? — as it progresses. But, if you don’t mind some gore, it’s inventive and smart, injecting the Gothic formula with some fresh blood.
NPR Review