mexican gothic essay

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Mexican Gothic

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, smart, and has 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. 

“It’s as if a supernatural power compels us to turn the pages of the gripping Mexican Gothic.”—The Washington Post

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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. “It’s Lovecraft meets the Brontës in Latin America, and after a slow-burn start Mexican Gothic gets seriously weird” (The Guardian).

  • NYT Best Seller List
  • Indie Bestseller List
  • Winner British Fantasy Award (August Derleth Award)
  • Winner Locus Award
  • Winner Goodreads Award
  • Winner Aurora Award
  • Winner Pacific Northwest Book Awards
  • Finalist Nebula, World Fantasy, Shirley Jackson, Stoker, Mythopoeic Fiction Award in Adult Literature awards
  • Best of the Year: New Yorker, NPR, Washington Post, Book Page, Book Riot, AudioFile, Library Journal, Electric Lit, Vanity Fair, Marie Claire
  • Library Reads Top Pick
  • Indie Next Top Pick
  • Book of the Month, July

Publisher: Del Rey Publication Year: 2020 Narrator: Frankie Corzo Illustrator: Jacket design Faceout Studio/Tim Green ASIN: 0525620788 ISBN: 9780525620785

Mexican Gothic is a gloriously moody adventure. Spooky, smart, and wry. Chic, no-nonsense Noemi Taboada is one hell of a tour guide through this world of mystery, scandal and spirits. Silvia Moreno-Garcia writes with assurance and playfulness and this novel is masterful.

—Victor LaValle, author of The Changeling

Darkly brilliant and captivating. Readers who love old houses and family secrets will devour this book (as I did!). The setting itself—High Place, with its reputation for devouring the dreams of young women—is a character in this marvelously fantastical novel. From 1950s glamorous Mexican high society, to the crumbling pride of an abandoned silver mine, Moreno-Garcia enthralls with this twisty tale of love and betrayal.

—Yangsze Choo, New York Times bestselling author of The Night Tiger and The Ghost Bride

A gorgeous piece of work . . . absolutely terrifying, and it has stayed with me in a powerful way.

—Sarah Gailey, Hugo Award-winning author of Magic for Liars

Mexican Gothic terrified and fascinated me. Silvia Moreno-Garcia proves once again that she’s a genre-jumping wizard, one of the most exciting and necessary authors writing today.

—Charlie Jane Anders, nationally bestselling author of The City in the Middle of the Night

Tense, atmospheric, and beautifully written, Mexican Gothic will carry readers back in time to 1950s Mexico where a dark secret looms large, insidiously winding its way through the pages. A spellbinding, suspenseful, immersive read!

—Chanel Cleeton, New York Times & USA Today bestselling author of The Last Train to Key West

Reminded me of the old Mary Stewart romance mysteries mixed with a healthy dose of Lovecraftian horror: in other words, a classic Gothic horror romance, told with perfect skill and elan. Can’t say I’m surprised though: Moreno-Garcia is a master who writes with a deft hand and a flare for beautifully evocative details. Seriously loved everything about it, which was so engaging I read the whole thing last night.

—Jenn Lyons, author of The Ruin of King

Mexican Gothic is the subversive, seductive, satisfying haunted house story I didn’t know I needed. I genuinely couldn’t put it down.

—Alix E. Harrow, author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January

An intense, beautiful monster of a novel. Moreno-Garcia’s gothic plot is as sharp as a razor and twice as dangerous. Like any good terror, I couldn’t look away. Lush and lyrical writing makes this a vivid, seductive read.

—A. J. Hackwith, author of THE LIBRARY OF THE UNWRITTEN

Moreno-Garcia’s energetic romp through the gothic genre (after  Gods of Jade and Shadow ) is delightfully bonkers.

—Publishers Weekly

Stylish and edgy… its archly intelligent tone and insightful writing make  Mexican Gothic  an original escape to an eerie world.

—New York Times

This original, well-paced novel from Moreno-Garcia has great gothic elements with a little VanderMeer creativity thrown in.

—Library Journal

In the fall, I cracked open Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s “Mexican Gothic” in the bath and found myself reading until the water turned cold.

—The New Yorker

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

— Kirkus

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

This is the smart gothic novel I’ve been waiting for since gothics started hitting shelves again.

—Amazon Book Review

I spent half of the listen on the literal edge of my seat, and the other half trying to stop myself from screaming.

—Audible.com

It’s Lovecraft meets the Brontës in Latin America, and after a slow-burn start  Mexican Gothic  gets seriously weird.

—The Guardian

A distinctive and cinematic horror novel that is not for the faint of heart.

—Book Page

Moreno-Garcia proves that it’s possible to create a believable female protagonist who defies not just the Doyles but the patriarchy of her time.

—LA Times

Moreno-Garcia is having a blast playing with the conventions of Gothic literature

—Locus

It’s as if a supernatural power compels us to turn the pages of the gripping Mexican Gothic.

—Washington Post

It’s deliciously dark, atmospheric, and creepy. The visceral imagery, ominous tone, and intriguing premise sent chills down the back of my neck.

—Cemetery Dance

This pitch-perfect Gothic tale is a delicious, delicious delight

—Heat

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The twisted evil of eugenics made real in the novel ‘Mexican Gothic’

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Noemí Taboada, the heroine of Silvia Moreno-Garcia ’s novel, “Mexican Gothic,” lives for pleasure, and in 1950s Mexico City, she can find plenty of it. She manages a whirl of cigarette smoke and cocktails, as vibrant and brittle as a butterfly, without scandalizing herself or her social class. Yet she aspires to more; though Noemí’s father dismisses her academic passions, she’s finished an undergraduate degree in anthropology.

Her plans to begin graduate school are diverted by a call from an uncle. Her cousin Catalina, married to an Englishman named Virgil Doyle whose family owned a large strip mine, now lives in a country manor known as High Place that may also be her prison; among Catalina’s melodramatic-sounding claims is that it “stinks of decay, brims with every single evil and cruel sentiment.” Noemí is sent to find out if her cousin is ill or in danger.

All the gothic tropes promised in the winking title are in place: The sacrificial virgin; the damsel in distress; the cruel, unyielding husband; the spooky, distant locale; even a Mrs. Danvers -esque chatelaine named Florence, Virgil’s sister. Let’s not forget her son, seemingly spineless Francis, and the aged, rotting, domineering paterfamilias, Howard Doyle, whose sway over the household is inexplicable — at first.

But Moreno-Garcia isn’t just rattling off genre signifiers. The author’s postcolonial spin on the gothic tradition evokes the usual suspects: Daphne du Maurier, Emily Brontë, Mary Shelley, even Anne Radcliffe. Like those authors, Moreno-Garcia works in a tradition in which chills and thrills tap into elemental cultural fears — runaway science, carnal passion. But to these she adds a more politically inflected horror, both ancient and timely: A racist will to power.

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Cousin Catalina presents initially as a Victorian-style hypochondriac, whose illness might be “the vapors” compounded by an unhealthy dependence on a tincture procured from the nearby village. Moreno-Garcia writes simply in these early pages, her declarative sentences and straightforward descriptions playing against the creeping gloom.

Whenever Noemí tries to light a cigarette, Florence stops her: it’s against the rules. Nearly everything seems to be against the rules — Howard’s rules — from nicotine to electrical lighting. The father’s creepy fiefdom exudes Britain’s imperialist history as well as its literary traditions. The house is “absolutely Victorian in construction, with its broken shingles, elaborate ornamentation, and dirty bay windows”; completing the portrait are a vast collection of silver plates and vessels and a cloying wine served nightly.

Moreno-Garcia’s previous novels have ranged widely: a fantasy based on Mayan lore (“ Gods of Jade and Shadow ”); a narco vampire horror (“ Certain Dark Things ”); the story of a magical, decade-hopping mixtape (“ Signal to Noise ”). And here she is up to far more than a country-house locked-room chiller. At night, Noemí succumbs to strange, lucid dreams, bouts of sleepwalking and erotic pangs for Virgil, whom she finds repellent by the light of day.

This gothic amalgam of repulsion and desire adheres especially to the family’s mysterious symbol: a snake circling around to swallow its own tail. Many readers will recognize before Noemí does that this is the classical ouroboros , a concept originating in ancient Egypt and used by many early cultures to signify the cycle of death and rebirth. Over the millennia it’s come to signify other things too, including fertility, self-cannibalism and infinity, but even a reader who has never encountered the scaly symbol will feel a shiver on encountering it in High Place time and again. On carpets and furnishings and even in stained glass, its “One is All” motto recalls Tolkien’s menacing “ring to rule them all.”

A closed circle can also signal a closed family — or a self-limiting gene pool. Just as Shelley’s “Frankenstein” expressed the fear of science unleashed, Moreno-Garcia is plumbing the farthest reaches of another repellant and yet (to many) distressingly alluring cultural force. Howard Doyle believes strongly in eugenics.

LOS ANGELES, CA - JUNE 11: Rufus B. von KleinSmid's name removed from the University of Southern California International relations building on Thursday, June 11, 2020 in Los Angeles, CA. von KleinSmid was the fifth president of the University of Southern California. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

USC removes name of Rufus von KleinSmid, a eugenics leader, from prominent building

USC has removed the name of former President Rufus von KleinSmid, a eugenics supporter, from a prominent campus building.

June 12, 2020

This patriarch’s opinions take hold of him physically. He retreats to his room, and for good reason: When Noemí is brought in to see him, she finds a sick, gasping creature covered with open sores that reek of spoiled fruit. Catalina’s descriptions weren’t so hyperbolic after all; nor was her own condition, which seems to be deteriorating. By the time Noemí learns the family’s deepest secrets, she’s a part of them, a player in their scheme to better the Doyles forevermore.

Mexico has a fraught history with eugenics, which flourished after the Revolution of the early 20 th century. As in other Latin-American countries, eugenics in Mexico was weaponized to encourage the procreation of the “fit” in order to rebuild the post-war population. Moreno-Garcia somewhat muddles this history, which is her right as a novelist, adding layers of meaning that highlight the clash between colonial powers and a nation struggling to come into its own. Noemí finds journals and papers about eugenics in Howard’s library, and reads a marked passage about the “impulsive temperament” of “the half-breed mestizo.” She throws it in the trash.

Sometimes I longed for more about this piece of Mexico’s past, a slightly more direct reckoning with the history. Yet Moreno-Garcia aims not just to edify but to thrill. Readers will cheer as Noemí fights off the nasty Doyles, gasp as they pull her back in. Writing about “Mexican Gothic” without spoiling it isn’t easy, because the author plants clues along the way, which might ruin her fabulous, freaky, one-of-a-kind denouément. Suffice it to say that Noemí and Francis must battle a variety of demons in confronting the origin of the Doyle family power — demons that evoke both Mexican and English tropes, from silver heirlooms to Mayan legends and mycological hallucinations of all kinds .

By the time readers have tiptoed and reeled in Noemí’s well-heeled shoes, the 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 not just the Doyles but the patriarchy of her time — the more polite eugenics of family that didn’t traffic in serpent symbols or dark rites — to fight for what she knows is a more righteous future.

Patrick is a freelance critic who tweets @TheBookMaven .

Mexican Gothic Sylvia Moreno-Garcia Del Rey: 320 pages, $27

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'Jane Eyre' Meets 'Dracula' In This Sharp, Inventive 'Mexican Gothic' Tale

Maureen Corrigan

Maureen Corrigan

Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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.

Pitch-Perfect 'Mexican Gothic' Ratchets Up The Dread

Book Reviews

Pitch-perfect 'mexican gothic' ratchets up the dread.

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."

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Author silvia moreno-garcia on her new haunted house mystery.

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.

mexican gothic essay

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Mexican Gothic Summary & Study Guide

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Mexican Gothic Summary & Study Guide Description

The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Moreno-Garcia, Silvia. Mexican Gothic. Del Rey-Penguin Random House LLC, 2020.

Moreno-Garcia’s novel is narrated in the third person and follows Noemí Taboada, a young woman who travels to the family residence of her cousin’s husband, where she investigates strange occurrences.

The novel opens in Mexico City, where Noemí’s father summons her home from a party. He has received a letter from Noemí’s cousin, Catalina, who claims the man she recently married, Virgil, is poisoning her. Virgil has also written, saying Catalina is unwell but recovering. Noemí’s father asks her to investigate the situation at the home of Virgil’s family, the Doyles.

In the town of El Triunfo, Noemí meets Francis, Virgil’s cousin, who drives her to High Place, the Doyles’ house. There, Noemí meets Francis’s mother Florence, a woman with a cold demeanor. Catalina tells Noemí she has had tuberculosis and does not remember what she wrote in her letter. At dinner, Virgil’s father, Howard, comments on Noemí’s dark skin, and speaks to her about eugenics and the role of beauty in natural selection.

The next day, Francis tells Noemí more about the Doyle family, who is of English ancestry and used to operate a silver mine. In the High Place cemetery, Noemí sees a statue of Francis’s great aunt Agnes. Francis explains that Agnes died during an epidemic that killed many of the miners. When Noemí visits her cousin again, Catalina seems disturbed and says the walls speak to her. She asks Noemí to obtain medicine for her from Marta Duval, a healer. Noemí meets Dr. Cummins, the family physician, who claims tuberculosis has caused Catalina’s mental symptoms. That night, Noemí dreams of golden mushrooms sprouting from the wallpaper and a golden woman.

In town, Noemí visits Dr. Camarillo, a local physician, to arrange for a second opinion on Catalina’s condition. She finds Marta Duval, who agrees to make the medicine for Catalina but warns Noemí that the Doyle place is haunted. Marta tells Noemí that Ruth, Mr. Doyle’s daughter, shot several members of the family before shooting herself, and that Florence’s husband, Richard, was found dead in a ravine.

Back at High Place, Howard tells Noemí about his wives, Agnes and Alice, who were sisters and his cousins. Noemí later has a nightmare in which Howard is undressing her before he seems to change into Virgil.

When Dr. Camarillo examines Catalina, he concludes she needs psychiatric attention, but Virgil refuses to move Catalina for care. Meanwhile, Noemí begins to spend more time with Francis and to entertain ideas of romance with him.

Noemí dreams of Ruth shooting someone else and then herself. She wakes up in a hallway with Virgil, who tells her she has been sleepwalking. The next day, Noemí picks up Catalina’s remedy. Marta tells Noemí that Ruth was in love with a man named Benito, but Howard arranged for her to marry her cousin Michael instead.

After Catalina takes Marta’s medicine, she falls into convulsions, but recovers. Virgil and Florence are angry at Noemí for having procured the medicine, which Florence claims, with Dr. Cummins’ backing, was an opium tincture. However, Francis tells Noemí that Catalina already had a similar reaction to the same remedy, and warns her to leave High Place. Virgil later apologizes to Noemí for being upset with her, and admits he married Catalina because his father is dying and wants to secure the bloodline. In the meantime, Noemí has dreamt of a woman giving birth to an egg-shaped lump that explodes into golden dust.

Catalina gives Noemí a diary entry of Ruth’s, which inspires Noemí to ask Francis if he thinks the house is haunted. He tells her again to leave High Place. Later, Noemí dreams that Virgil is sexually assaulting her and that she is wrapped in a shroud in a coffin. She begins to see mold on the wallpaper move, and decides to leave the house. After what is supposed to be her last dinner there, Florence and Virgil force Noemí to kneel before Howard while he kisses her. She has a vision of a man named Doyle among people who have a life-saving medicine.

When Noemí wakes up, Francis tells her the Doyles can bond with a fungus that gives them powers. To maintain these powers and obtain immortality, Howard impregnates female relatives and migrates into the bodies of men in the family. Noemí’s dreams and visions are caused by “the gloom,” a consciousness that controls the house and its inhabitants through the fungus. She appears to be compatible with the fungus, and the family wants her to marry Francis. Francis says that Howard will attempt to migrate into Virgil’s body soon. He and Noemí plan to escape at this time with the help of Marta’s tincture, which provides resistance against the Doyles’ powers.

After Francis and Noemí’s wedding, Virgil tells Noemí he knows about her plan and tries to rape her. She pushes him, causing him to hit his head, and runs to Catalina’s room, where Mary, a maid controlled by the Doyles, tries to strangle Noemí. Francis intervenes and Noemí slashes Mary’s throat. Florence, holding a gun, forces Noemí, Catalina, and Francis into Howard’s room, where Howard is to migrate into Francis’s body. Catalina stabs Howard with a scalpel several times. Francis struggles with Florence and shoots her in the process before escaping with Noemí and Catalina.

The trio flees to a chamber beneath the family crypt. Noemí discovers Agnes’s corpse there and understands Howard is using her mind to control the gloom. Virgil appears and fights with Francis, but Noemí sets the corpse on fire, which weakens the men, and Catalina stabs Virgil in the eye. Noemí and Catalina help Francis out of the crypt and they leave High Place as it burns. The novel ends with Noemí and Francis in bed together in a room in El Triunfo, speaking of a future in Mexico City.

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View Mexican Gothic Chapters 1 - 3

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  • Why white supremacy is a cult, according to novelist Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The author of Mexican Gothic spoke at the Vox Book Club live event about the nexus of power, sex, and fairy tales in the gothic novel.

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Although it may seem impossible given how strangely time is moving these days, Halloween was just last week. To celebrate, the Vox Book Club met up with Silvia Moreno-Garcia to discuss her novel Mexican Gothic , our October book pick. Moreno-Garcia, who in addition to being a bestselling author has a masters degree in science and technology, took us all to school on the history of gothic literature, the communication skills of mushrooms, and why being attracted to someone does not mean you are “open 24/7 like the 7-Eleven.”

Check out the video above to watch our full conversation. I’ve also collected a few highlights, lightly edited for length and clarity, below.

Once you’re finished here, if you would like a book to help you deal with the state of vibrating uncertainty in which the prolonged 2020 election has left us all, you might take a look at our November book pick, Trust Exercise . We’ll start our discussion of that book on November 20 ; sign up for our newsletter to make sure you don’t miss anything in the meantime.

Now let’s get to the gothic.

One of the most interesting things about this book is the way it’s building a whole conversation with classic 18th- or 19th-century gothic literature. What is your relationship with gothic literature like, and what elements did you really want to explore in this book?

It was one of the first types of speculative fiction that I encountered, because the first horror author that I read was Edgar Allan Poe. And after him came H.P. Lovecraft . Somewhere in the middle of that, in my teens, I read Horacio Quiroga. And I read a lot of what you would consider the bread-and-butter classics: Frankenstein , Dracula , Carmilla , Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde . I’ve been familiar with horror literature in general, and with gothic literature in particular, for a really long time.

I wasn’t very much interested in what is called gothic romance or a female gothic. I was always more into what is termed the male gothic, which is gothic books that have supernatural elements, graphic violence, and that kind of stuff. Sometimes we also call it gothic horror, as opposed to what we consider to be the female gothic, which is more like Scooby-Doo types of stories. Jane Eyre kinds of tales, in which a young woman goes to a distant location, meets some dude, and then there’s some kind of mystery to unravel.

There is a happy ending — that is mostly the desire of that kind of story. Especially when you’re talking about the mid-20th century gothic romance revival, the new gothic romances. Those are the ones that came out in paperback form and that we associate with the gothic form, because they have a woman running away from a castle. There’s always a mystery, but there’s not a supernatural element, and the romance is really the emphasis.

It’s a liminal category, the gothic, and this is one side of it. But I was always more into the horror gothic. Into the Dracula s of the world and the Carmilla s.

A lot of the classic gothic literature from that time is working with a very colonialist set of fears about basically everyone outside of Europe. And as I was reading Mexican Gothic , I kept thinking, well, it was projection all along, because all of those anxieties that they’re attributing to non-Europeans actually apply way more to the British Empire. So how did you think about creating that kind of reversal as you wrote?

One thing that happens with gothic novels is the idea of the evil Other. That’s quite clear if you read Walpole or Radcliffe . It’s often an evil Italian or an evil Spaniard. Catholicism is mixed with that. It’s like these exotic evil Catholic people that are coming to pervert us.

Once you move from the 1700s into the 1800s, the British Empire is expanding. At the same time, gothic literature is also expanding, and it’s finding other sources of frightening Others from parts of Europe that Radcliffe might have mined. So not necessarily Italy or Spain. That’s when you get Dracula , who’s coming from Eastern Europe. The source of evil is now not Spain, it’s Transylvania, Romania.

And then you have also this idea of decay and danger in things like Jane Eyre , where there’s the mad wife in the attic. She is white, but she is Creole. So she is a white-born woman raised in the Caribbean, and that has a lot of important implications in this time period. If you read the literature of the time and how people are talking about folks that are living and growing up in the Caribbean, there is very much a sense that there is a danger that you are going to be degraded, that something happens physically that brings you down. It diminishes your whiteness and contaminates you.

So you find that going on in gothic fiction. The Other, the person who is not an Anglo-Saxon Protestant upstanding male white person, is always a source of anxiety in many different ways for people. Even if they’re not the outright villain, they’re still a source of anxiety in some way.

And then in Mexican Gothic , standing as a response to the creepy Doyles whose Englishness becomes a source of anxiety, you get Noemí being a brown woman who is sexually confident and gets to be the avatar of modernity and cosmopolitanism. What did it mean to you to be able to build a character like that?

I think one of the problems that happens with representations of — well, I’ll say with Mexicans, but in general with Latin Americans — is that we only get one type of story told. In general, the type of story that you get if you’re Latin American and you’re reading something in the English language — because it’s different if you’re reading Spanish fiction — you don’t get any genre fiction at all. The stories that you can tell are very limited. Normally they limit you to the suffering illegal immigrant.

So I wanted to do something that was in genre, because I like genre. I wanted to do something that was horror, not [hardship and suffering porn]. And I wanted to write something that reflected some of the people that I knew. Some of the people that I saw reflected in my life and society growing up.

I was inspired by a great-aunt that I had, who dressed very well, very fashionably, and liked to go to parties. She was, quote-unquote, very “modern” in her time.

I was talking to somebody else and they were also showing me photos of their grandmother and some great-aunts, too. Around the same time, 1958, 1960s. And they were all dressed like Mexican Audrey Hepburns.

I think we don’t think about that when we think about Mexican people, when we think about Latin American people. We don’t imagine them having full and interesting lives in the same way that we imagine white people having full and interesting lives. But they did. Not everybody lived in the countryside. Some people lived in the city. Not everybody was from the same social class. People were of different social classes. Not everybody was necessarily from the same ethnic background, either. We have indigenous people, and we also had different waves of immigrants. We had a big Lebanese wave. I come from a city that had a huge Chinese population at a certain point in time.

So there’s all these nuances that get lost sometimes when you read these stories about us. And in every story that I write, I want to bring a little bit of that.

I wanted to talk a little about the figure of Virgil, who is such an interesting take on the archetype of the gothic hero. A lot of times that character is morally disgusting, but if you look at someone like Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights , his creepiness seems to be supposed to make him more romantic and sexy. But with Virgil, every time he was sexy, it seemed like I got more creeped out by him. So how do you find and create that balance as you write?

Yeah, Virgil is supposed to be a typical Byronic hero, mad, bad, and dangerous to know . That applies to a wide number of men that appear in gothic fiction.

One thing that happens with gothic fiction, and I think the person who explores this most keenly is probably Angela Carter in her collection of retold fairy tales , is that gothic fiction seems to echo certain fairy tales. It definitely seems to echo “ Beauty and the Beast ,” and it seems to echo “Bluebeard” to a certain degree: A man that you don’t know if you can trust him. In “Beauty and the Beast,” it turns out that he’s a nice guy in the end, so these fairy tales combine a happy ending and love with a feeling of darkness at the same time.

And we could say that gothic fiction does the same thing. I mean, in Rebecca , ultimately, she is happy because she finds out that her husband murdered his previous wife, which means that he didn’t really love her that much after all. So the cathartic reveal there for her is kind of like, “I am the best kind of woman in the equation.” But on the other hand, she doesn’t really seem to ponder the implications of living with somebody who is certainly a murderer and who’s possibly not telling her everything. It’s his version of the story. We never see Rebecca by herself, so we really don’t know that she was such a terrible person as he says.

Fairy tales tend to have this play, where you’ve got the love story, but you also have this darkness. And women seem to like that. It’s a fantasy space, right? I think some people sometimes don’t understand that, and they think that a fantasy space is the same as a real space, but it’s not. It’s also an erotic space, and certainly Angela Carter, in her fairy tales, brings out the erotic elements in all of them. Her version of “Bluebeard” is very erotic, and her version of “Little Red Riding Hood” also. She pulls at these threads that fairy tales have, these elements that they have that we don’t think about much.

Fairy tales definitely have that light/dark erotic tingle to them, and Byronic heroes go back to that. You know, like, he’s bad for you, but you kind of like that.

So that’s the appeal of the Byronic hero, among other things, because Byronic heroes tend to also be very wealthy and very powerful. Things that we appreciate in society normally.

Especially in men.

They wield power, they are the lord of the manor. Often they’re physically imposing and very physically attractive, too.

So there’s something about that, right? That nexus of power, that nexus of sex, that nexus of the fairy tale, that people really kind of like, and women especially seem to really enjoy.

I wanted to toy around with it and poke at it. If we really had Heathcliff or Mr. Rochester nowadays hanging around with us, he would probably be fairly disgusting, and we would probably feel fairly threatened. So Virgil is the horrific explosion of all these gothic romantic elements taken to the dark side.

And then, in contrast to Virgil, you get that really compelling comparison with Francis, who is well-meaning but trapped within the legacy of his family’s monstrousness. At the end, there’s a little possibility of hope for Francis and Noemí finding some sort of happiness together. Do you think they will? Or do you want to leave that in ambiguity forever?

I want to leave it in ambiguity forever. But I will say that one thing that I like to read is true crime fiction. And one of the types of crimes that I find most interesting are cults.

There’s all kinds of cults. Not necessarily horror kind of cults. Some cults just take all your money, and then you’re left broke and you’re an old lady. Some other ones do get very weird. They tell you that aliens will come and save you and take you to the Nebulon Galaxy and everybody kills themselves and horrible things happen.

But the interesting thing about cults is always you hear somebody talking about what it was like living in the cult, and then what it was like coming out of the cult. But the first question that I always ask myself is, “How did you get into the cult?”

Francis is kind of an abuse victim and a cult victim. He doesn’t know anything else, so he’s been abused for a really long time and is in this very weird cult.

But I also think that white supremacy is like a horrible, dangerous cult, and like an infection. And it doesn’t just harm — I mean, it harms people of color definitely. Certainly African American people, Latinos, when somebody tries to hurt them, they are the most harmed. But I think it also harms the white people within.

It’s a dangerous kind of place, I think, white supremacy. And if you get into it, you really start losing touch with reality, and it’s almost like you’re the member of a suicidal cult to me.

I love the big reveal of the mushrooms. How did you hit on the idea that the mushrooms would be the mechanism by which Howard is able to achieve his omnipotence?

I actually really like mushrooms. I edited an anthology called Fungi with Orrin Grey many years ago, and it was because we were both interested in doing something about mushrooms.

They are an interesting organism because they’re not a plant and they’re not an animal. I know that they exist in botanical collections, but they really are not plants. They are a different kind of kingdom. And they form something that is called a mycorrhiza that is a mutual symbiotic association between the fungus and the plant in its root system. What happens is that there is basically a mushroom network underground that we don’t see, and that is what connects the forest. And through that you can have sugar and water and mineral exchanges. You can withstand disease. You can have resistance to insects.

Suzanne Simard, who is a researcher over at the University of British Columbia, came up with this term called the hub tree or mother tree. She figured out that trees communicate with each other. There’s a central tree in the middle of the forest. Through the mycorrhizal network, it can send information, so certain other trees that need nutrients get an exchange of nutrients. It can do a lot of really, really cool things.

The way it does that is there’s a mycelium colony that colonizes all the trees and all the plants and is allowing different species to communicate with each other. It has that central node, the hub tree, the mother tree.

So I think a lot of people, when they read the book, they think it’s outlandish and maybe even a little bit dumb. But there’s real science behind it.

I think we can open it up for audience Q&A now. Marika asks, “The sexism and racism behind Otherness in this genre really stands out to me in Mexican Gothic . I love that the creepy Other was this European family. Do you think it’s possible to move away from the idea of Otherness as a source of fascination and horror, or is the best solution to alter the perspective such that the Other is always something different?”

Well, definitely not all horror novels used the Other as an element of terror, and not even all gothic fiction uses the Other as an element of terror. If you look at Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , the element of terror there is within you, right? That you don’t know what resides within your own psyche.

I think there are other ways of manifesting horror. But I also think that because the Other, the deviancy, has for a really long time been people of color, that there’s enough space to play with that in various settings and ways. So that you can’t say, “Okay, we did it once, and now that it’s been done, nobody ever do it again.”

It looks like we have a few different people asking about the pacing of Mexican Gothic and how everything is sort of slow and moody for the first portions of the book, and then once you hit the reveal it’s like, action, thriller time! So I think people are wondering how you developed that structure and when you decide to kick it in high gear.

It was a 70/30 rule. I said, 70 percent will be quiet, and then 30 percent will just push the pedal down.

I mean, gothics are slow. I had somebody that had never read Dracula before and they read it and they told me, “It’s just a bunch of journal entries. It’s such a boring piece of crap.” And I said, “Yes, it is.” Well, not just journal entries, but like train tape timetables and lots of stuff. It does tell a story, and it does get kind of creepy, but they wanted the vampire jumping out on page two and biting into somebody, and that just doesn’t happen.

Gothic has this slow, moody, syrupy sort of pace. That is what gives gothic its shape.

So I was trying to respect that for most of the book. But then I flip it around in the end and it becomes an explosion of violence and horror. But you know, if you read The Monk , you know The Monk gets pretty crazy at the end. It’s like, the devil is here, and now I am raping this chick that I wanted, but she’s also related to me and I didn’t know and I’m going to hell. It’s just one thing after the other.

Amanda wants to know about the mechanics of Virgil having influence over Noemí in the shared dreams. He has a line about her being his from the start. Does the sexual attraction fuel the influence that Virgil has over her?

We get at one point that she likes guys who look like Pedro Infante, a movie star. So she definitely has a type, and it’s more the Virgil type than the Francis kind of situation. So definitely there is some sexual attraction.

But at one point the other thing that she expresses, or I hope that comes through, is that sexual attraction doesn’t mean that you are going to actually consent to sleep with somebody. You can find somebody interesting and attractive. It doesn’t mean that you’re open 24/7 like the 7-Eleven, just come in anytime you want, just because you find somebody attractive.

It doesn’t mean she’s going to act on it. She likes her cousin. She’s not going to do that.

And he’s just thinking, “Well, this is a green light, all signs go, everything is allowed.” That’s another thing that is not right, when somebody just assumes, “Oh well, she let me hold her hand,” or, “She let me kiss her, so now everything in the whole menu is in there.” He’s that kind of guy. He thinks like, if you shook his hand, everything is permitted. That’s not right, Virgil!

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Mexican Gothic

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93 pages • 3 hours read

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The Feminist Gothic

Moreno-Garcia announces the genre of her novel with its title, Mexican Gothic. The general setting , characters, use of terror to entertain readers, and focus on the supernatural are all elements that place the novel firmly in the Gothic genre. On the other hand, Moreno-Garcia’s decision to write a Mexican Gothic signals her intention to renovate the genre. She departs from conventions of the English Gothic by playing with expectations related to gender.

While the traditional English Gothic got its start with 18th-century novelist Horace Walpole, Mexican Gothic is more clearly connected to the work of writers like 19th-century novelist Ann Radcliffe. Radcliffe used terror to entertain her readers, but she also framed seemingly supernatural effects as ultimately rooted in the natural world and included determined female protagonists who challenged traditional notions of femininity.

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Book review: “Mexican Gothic” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia expands traditional gothic themes

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mexican gothic essay

Silvia Moreno-Garcia has written many novels that follow a similar theme to “Mexican Gothic.” | @silviamg.author, Instagram

by BERNADETTE D’AURIA

Staff Writer

“He is trying to poison me. This house is sick with rot, stinks of decay, brims with every single evil and cruel sentiment.” These are the words that Noemí Taboado receives in a letter from her newlywed cousin, Catalina Doyle. 

Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s “Mexican Gothic” was described as “a thoroughly enjoyable, thought-provoking novel” in a review by NPR , and I cannot find any room to disagree with this sentiment. Taking place in an isolated mansion in 1950s Mexico, Moreno-Garcia’s 2020 novel tells the story of Noemí’s quest to find out the meaning behind her cousin’s frantic letter and rescue her from High Place, the isolated countryside house that threatens to consume them both. 

There are many things that this novel does well. The aspects that stand out most to me are the reimagining of the gothic novel and Moreno-Garcia’s ambitious—and successful—attempt to comment on the role of women within both the genre and the time period in which the novel takes place. 

Anne Williams, author of “Art of Darkness: A Poetics of Gothics,” characterizes gothic plots as domestic, as they center around dangers that befall the home. Therefore, the setting usually involves a family home with a default focus on the woman—or women—at the center. This phenomenon can be observed in novels like “Jane Eyre,” “The Mysteries of Udolpho” and “Rebecca,” which have all been cited as inspirations for “Mexican Gothic.” By centering the plot at High Place, Moreno-Garcia is playing into the gothic plot that Williams outlines, as High Place is the center of domesticity for the Doyle family. The house is the location of their legacy and, with the arrival of Noemí, it has the potential to be the location of their downfall. 

Other common tropes of the genre outside of the gothic location include but are not limited to isolation, madness, disease, superstition, dreams and nightmares, frame narratives and darkness. When applied shallowly, these tropes can come across as superficial and lacking substance. However, due to Moreno-Garcia’s background in eugenics history and knowledge of the historical landscape of Real del Monte, the town that served as an inspiration for “Mexican Gothic,” the novel’s approach to these tropes is grounded and lacking superficiality. 

Certain updates to the gothic genre make “Mexican Gothic” such a compelling novel. Typically, the heroines of the gothic novel are virtuous, innocent and overall vanilla in their characterization. This does not mean that this type of heroine cannot be compelling to read about, as with Jane Eyre, or that these characters cannot be without their faults, like Catherine Linton of “Wuthering Heights.” But, after a while, these heroines can come across as formulaic or even frustrating to read for even those familiar with and a fan of the genre. 

Noemí Taboado is anything but innocent and virtuous. The novel opens up with her on a casual date with a man she “does not intend to marry” who she asks for a cigarette. All of this clues readers in to the type of person Noemí is: direct, free with her sexuality and not afraid to talk back to the men around her, i.e. her beau and father. A female protagonist like this deviates from the traditional gothic heroine, which makes for a much more charismatic and exciting third-person narrator. It also allows readers to see how interactions with the much more traditional Doyle family will eventually lead to conflict within the narrative. 

Noemí also has goals outside of the narrative’s main plot. Her initial motivation to go to High Place is not just because her cousin asked, but because her father promises that she will be able to attend university if she does. Rather than strive for marriage, Noemí is actively fighting against the societal expectation that she needs to get married in order to be successful. Her path to that success, while being held in the hands of her father, is a quest to help out another woman in her life. I do not view this as coincidence, as there are many instances throughout the novel in which Noemí must rely on women and other victims of the patriarchy in order to succeed in gaining her freedom. 

Another—albeit obvious—deviation from the traditional gothic novel is the setting. No, I am not talking about the big, spooky house. Instead, I am referring to the fact that Moreno-Garcia sets her novel in the Mexican countryside, which is a new take on the traditional location of the gothic novel. This setting allows for a more direct commentary regarding the impacts of colonialism, as the Doyle family members are white Brits who have made their success by exhausting the resources that surround their property. As Moreno-Garcia herself said in an interview with Code Switch , “I just thought it was an interesting bit of the colonial legacy, to look at the British legacy, and to set it in Mexico to examine some of those forces colliding.”

There are plenty of other points that Moreno-Garcia hits on in her novel, and I could talk all day about them. However, I think that the best thing you could do in order to understand the grotesque beauty of “Mexican Gothic” is to pick up a copy and read it yourself. It is truly a thrilling adventure for anyone who enjoys narratives revolving around atmospheric settings, headstrong heroines and horror that weaves the natural and supernatural together. 

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Mexican Gothic

Quick recap & summary by chapter.

The Quick Recap and Chapter-by-Chapter Summary for Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia are below.

Quick(-ish) Recap

Noemí Taboada is a 22-year-old wealthy socialite. She goes to see her cousin Catalina, who is living with her husband's family in the High Place, a mansion located near a small village in the mountains. Catalina has written asking for help. She sees ghosts and believes that her husband, Virgil, is poisoning her. Virgil Doyle comes from a once-wealthy family that has run out of money. Noemí worries that the Doyles are after Catalina's bank account.

At the High Place, Catalina has a fever and is ranting about ghosts in the walls. She is being treated by the family doctor, Dr. Arthur Cummins. Noemí is given limited access to Catalina. Catalina asks Noemí to secretly pick up medicine (a tincture) from the town healer, Marta Duval. But the tincture causes a seizure, and Noemí's visits with Catalina are limited further.

Noemí eventually learns that High Place was built by the Doyle brothers, Leland and Howard (Virgil's father). They also re-opened the town's old silver mines. Howard's first wife was Agnes, who died. Howard remarried Agnes's sister, Alice, and they had two children, Ruth and Virgil. Meanwhile, Leland married Dorothy, and they had Michael and Florence.

Ruth fell in love with a man who mysteriously disappeared. Instead, Ruth was ordered to marry Michael. Before the wedding, she drugs and shoots up the household. Leland, Dorothy, Michael and Alice were killed. Then, Ruth killed herself. The mines were closed around that time. Florence later married and had Francis. But her husband, Richard, went raving mad and was found dead in a ravine. Now, the only Doyles left are Howard, Florence, Francis and Virgil.

As Noemí stays in the house, she starts to dream of ghosts, have strange visions involving the Foyles and she sees a golden woman climbing out from the walls. Noemí forges a friendship with Francis, but he warns her not to trust the rest of them. Virgil is charming but seems predatory. Florence is strict and scolds Noemí constantly. And Howard is old, controlling and a eugenics enthusiast. There are also rumors that the family is cursed. In addition to the family's sordid history, there is a sickness that has at times caused fevers, madness and death in many of the family's workers and staff.

As Noemí's dreams get worse and she starts sleepwalking, and she decides to leave High Place for now. At that point, the Doyles reveal they have no intention of letting her go. They tell her the truth, that Howard discovered a long time ago a mushroom that had the ability to heal and extend life. It is especially potent within the Doyle's bloodline, which is why they have an incestuous family history. This house and the air in it is infused with the mushroom's spores, which has grown around and under it, forming a symbiotic relationship with the house and its inhabitants. It also allows a level of control over people that have inhaled its spores.

The spores have an ability to collect and store memories. Noemí's visions are actually the family's collective memories, which they call "the gloom." Howard sacrificed his first wife, Agnes, through a ritual that turned her into the mind and hub for the spores to spring forth from. Howard is actually around three hundred years old. He has the power to transmute his memories into the gloom and then live on in another's body. He's been doing this with family members to preserve the potency of his powers.

The Doyles have lately been branching out in terms of marriages (Catalina, Richard, etc.) because their inbreeding is causing infertility. Outsiders react differently to the spores, with some getting fevers and dying (the sickness that killed their workers). But Noemí seems to highly complementary, plus she has the wealth they need to replenish their fortunes. They want Noemí to marry Francis.

Francis knows this is wrong, and he tells Noemí that Marta's tincture can lessen the spores' control over people. Francis and Noemí devise a plan for her to go along with the plan temporarily, as he sneaks Noemí and Catalina the tincture. After the wedding ceremony, they want to transmute Howard into Francis. However, Catalina stabs Howard in the eye with a scalpel, and Francis takes Florences gun and shoots her.

They escape into the family crypt, and Noemí sees that the body of Agnes is down there with spores sprouting from her body and her mind still acting as the hub. Virgil stops them. Virgil says he knew about them continuing to take the tincture, but he allowed it because he wanted them to injure Howard. That way, Virgil can take control of the spores. Instead, Francis fights with him, and Noemí lights the body of Agnes on fire. Catalina, Noemí and Francis escape into town with the house ablaze behind them.

The book sends with the police and Noemí's father headed over to the town to check things out. Francis has a dream about the house healing itself and him inside it, with it emerging stronger than ever. He wonders if he should kill himself. However, Francis and Noemí kiss, and they are hopeful they can build a better future.

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Chapter-by-Chapter Summary

Noemí Taboada returns from a costume party at the Tuñóns . Her date, Hugo Duarte , bids her goodnight. Noemí is twenty-two and a bit of a flighty socialite. Hugo is not a serious suitor because his position is too far below hers.

At home, Noemí’s father is concerned about her cousin, Catalina , who has been behaving oddly. Catalina has written them a crazed letter claiming that her husband, Virgil Doyle , is poisoning her and that she sees ghosts. She pleads for Noemí’s help. Neither Noemí nor her father have any idea what’s going on.

Catalina’s parents died when she was younger and she moved in with the Taboadas. Naomi’s father chased away a previous fiancee of Catalina’s, so she conducted her relationship with Virgil secretly. Virgil and Catalina married very quickly. Noemí’s father wonders if Virgil can be trusted. Virgil would be penniless without Catalina, but as long as they are married, Virgil has access to her bank account. (The Doyles were once a wealthy family but their money has run out.) Noemí’s father wants Noemí to go and check out the situation. In exchange, he will give Noemí permission to enroll in a masters anthropology program (both her parents want her to just get married).

Noemí leaves Mexico City and heads for the High Place , located in El Triunfo , a village situated in a forested area on the side of a mountain. Virgil’s younger cousin (once removed), Francis , arrives to pick her up from the station. The High Place is owned by Virgil’s father, Howard Doyle , and both Francis and his mother, Florence , live there. Florence explains that they have limited power and rely instead on candlelight.

At the house, Noemí insists on seeing Catalina, who is being heavily medicated by the Doyles. Catalina weakly tells Noemí that she has a fever and tuberculosis. Before Catalina can say more, Florence whisks her off for her medication, which puts her to sleep.

Over dinner, Florence cuts Noemí off when she asks about the silver mines that the Doyles used to operate, informing her that they don’t talk over dinner. Howard implies that Noemí is inferior because of her indigenous blood. Afterwards, Virgil explains that Dr. Arthur Cummins has been treating Catalina, though Florence administers the medicine. Virgil expresses annoyance at Noemí’s father’s suggestion that they employ a psychiatrist to help.

There are three staff members at the High Place ( Lizzie, Charles and Mary ), but none of them speak to her. The house is quiet and cold. As Noemí explores, she finds Howard’s many books and journals on eugenics research in the library. Francis is a bit friendlier than the rest of the household. He explains that the family’s mines were flooded in 1915 and the Revolution around that time contributed towards the family’s diminished wealth. He says they keep the house quiet because noises bother Howard.

When they are alone, Catalina asks Noemí to fetch a batch of medicine from a woman in town named Marta Duval . She tells Noemí to speak quietly and be careful because others in the house can hear them. Catalina says there are ghosts in the walls. Before she can explain, the doctor arrives.

Dr. Cummin says that the illness is nothing to worry about, but Noemí insists that something is wrong. Catalina is anxious and listless. Virgil claims that Catalina has always been depressive, but Noemí disagrees. Dr. Cummin expresses annoyance at what he considers Noemí being “agitated”. Still, Noemí insists on a second opinion or taking Catalina to a psychiatrist.

That night, Noemí finds herself fixated on the green and gold wallpaper. She dreams of flowers sprouting from it and a golden woman dressed in lace who is unable to speak.

Noemí asks Francis to borrow his car and drives to a local doctor’s office to ask for a second opinion about Catalina. Dr. Julio Eusebio Camarillo is afraid of angering the Doyles and Dr. Cummin by getting involved, but Noemí convinces him to come. He also tells Noemí about a strange epidemic that used to crop up at the Doyles’ mine from time to time. It involved high fevers, ranting and raving. Many people died.

Next, Noemí visits Marta Duval, who says that no tea can help Catalina. Instead, Martha believes the family is cursed. Ruth Doyle , Howard’s daughter, was supposed to marry to her cousin, Michael . But a week before her wedding day, she shot and killed him, her mother, aunt and uncle. Ruth shot Howard, too, but he survived. Then, Ruth shot herself. Later, Francis went and got suddenly married to a young man, Richard. But before long Richard was ranting and raving about ghosts, and the family soon found him dead at the bottom of the ravine.

Noemí thinks that these are coincidences, and asks for the tea. Marta tells her to come back in a week.

At dinner, Noemí is scolded for smoking in the house and for taking the car without Florence’s permission. Afterwards, Virgil privately apologies to Noemí for it later. That night, Howard tells Noemí about his wife Agnes (died of a disease), and Alice (Agne’s sister who he married afterwards. Alice is Virgil’s mother and was shot by her daughter Ruth).

As she sleeps, Noemí has nightmares of Howard Doyle hovering over her in her sleep and a woman’s voice telling her to wake up.

Dr. Camarillo arrives to look at Catalina, who is initially normal but soon starts complaining of exhaustion and people in the walls. Camarillo recommends a psychiatrist, but there isn’t more he can do. Later, Noemí and Virgil get into an argument over Catalina’s treatment and care.

Noemí also notices there are ouroboros (circular symbol of a snake eating its tail), the family’s heraldic symbol, around the property.

Noemí goes to smoke in the cemetery when she hears a buzzing noise she can’t seem to place. Then, Francis shows up, collecting mushrooms. He tells her about his interest in mushrooms. Noemí gets irritated when Francis reminds her of his mother’s house rules, but then Noemí apologies for it when she realizes he’s not happy about it either.

Noemí and Francis meet up in the library so he can show her his collection of pressed plants. On the library walls, there are paintings of Ruth as well as her victims — Alice, Michael, and Dorothy and Leland (Francis’s grandparents). Noemí asks Francis to drop her off in town the next day and pick her up later. Despite knowing his mother would disapprove, he agrees. Florence later asks Noemí not to talk to Francis about the city and its diversions. She notes that Francis has accepted his life here and it’s better not to put ideas in his head.

Another nightmare. There’s a sound of a beating heart, which Noemí follows and finds Ruth with a rifle. They walk together as a walls beat. She sees Ruth shoot herself and then a vision of the golden woman.

Just then, Virgil wakes her up, telling her that she’s sleepwalking and he walks her back to her room.

Chapter 12 (This part recounts and recaps the Doyle family’s history)

Francis drops Noemí off in town and she goes to find Marta. Noemí picks up the tea, but also asks for more information about the family.

Marta starts her story when the Doyles, Howard and his brother Leland, first came to town to reopen the city’s old mines. They started work constructing the High Place as well. Soon, however, the sickness infected their workers and many died, including Agnes (Howard’s wife). That’s when the cemetery was built.

Eventually, the disease passed, and Howard was remarried to Alice (Agnes’s sister) in 1895. A second wave of the sickness cropped up. Mexican workers without family in town were buried with no headstone or cross, so rumors started about mass graves the Doyles used to bury their dead.

In the past, there was a customary portion of silver (a “partido”) that the workers were paid. However, they ended that practice around then. Aurelio was a worker who was disgruntled about it and got the other men worked up about it too. There was a strike and some fighting. Soon, Aurelio was found dead, and it ended the strike. The mines continued. Ruth was born and many years later Virgil was born. Mr. Leland had children too, Michael and Florence.

Benito , Aurelio’s nephew, goes to work in the house. Ruth and Benito fall in love, despite Ruth being engaged to Michael. It’s rumored that when Howard found out, he almost killed Ruth. Then, Benito disappeared. No one knows if he ran away or died. Before the wedding, it’s rumored that Ruth put a sleeping draught in the food and that’s when she shot everyone.

Marta says that the place is now cursed. It is “mal de aire” which means the air is heavy, weighed down by evil. She gives Noemí a beaded bracelet which she says will serve as a talisman to protect her.

Afterwards, Noemí goes to see Dr. Camarillo about a rash she has on her wrist that she’d developed since being at the house. He gives her an ointment and bandages it up. She also buys a pack of cards. When Francis picks her up, he admits that ended up staying and taking a nap so his mother wouldn’t know he failed to chaperone her around. On the way back, they discuss Ruth and Francis says that Ruth should’ve burned the High Place to the ground.

Noemí surprises Catalina with the medicinal tea and the cards, for them to play with. Catalina takes multiple doses until Noemí stops her. However, Catalina immediately has a seizure. Noemí screams for help, and Mr. Cummins is called. He tells her it was opium. Noemí refuses to tell them where she got it. Afterwards, Virgil scolds Noemí.

Noemí visits the cemetery again and looks at the statue of Agnes. The marker has a one-word epitaph, “Mother”, which she finds strange considering both of Howard’s children were Alice’s. Francis finds her and tells Noemí not to blame herself for what happened. Catalina has taken the tincture before and had a similar reaction. Francis also tells Noemí that he’s tired because Howard has been keeping the family up caring for him. Howard has ulcers that won’t heal, but also won’t kill him.

That night, Noemí dreams again. She enters a clearing where a pregnant woman is in labor. A little girl sits on a chair nearby with a man behind her. The woman gives birth to a tumor. A man says “Death, overcome.”

Francis takes Noemí back into town, but Marta is not home. Noemí goes to talk to Dr. Camarillo. Camarillo says he doesn’t think Catalina’s tincture was opium, because Marta wouldn’t have access to it. She deals in herbs and plants, and poppies (required for opium) don’t grow around here. Camarillo also checks on Noemí’s bandages and is surprised to see her rash has completely healed so quickly.

When Noemí returns, Florence scolds her again, this time for leaving without giving them notice. They also imply that she’s spending too much time with Francis. In anger, Noemí tells Virgil that if something is wrong with Catalina it’s his fault, since he brought her here. Virgil admits that he thinks that when Catalina married him, Catalina had hoped to come in and reform the household to be cheerier, but his father doesn’t allow it.

Virgil also admits he was previously married to Arthur’s daughter. They were unhappy and had a series of miscarriages and she left.

As they chat, Virgil and Noemí reach a bit of a truce. Virgil offers to start looking into psychiatrists for Catalina with Noemí. Afterward, Noemí tries to make peace with Florence, too, but Florence isn’t having it.

Florence now refuses to let Noemí be alone with Catalina. Mary (household help) must keep watch. But, Catalina sneaks Noemí a note instead. On the note, Catalina writes “this is proof” and there is a page that appears to be from Ruth’s diary saying that she plans to kill. Noemí doesn’t understand what the proof is supposed to be for.

Noemí finally flat-out asks Francis if he thinks he’s ever seen ghosts in the house. She discusses two theories about why people see or think they see ghosts — extrasensory perception or the idea that people will these things into being. She also talks about how mercury vapors used in everyday items like paint used to make people think they were going mad. Francis doesn’t answer, but says that he thinks Noemí should leave because “just because there are no ghosts it doesn’t mean you can’t be haunted.” He compares her to his deceased father. Finally, he tells her not to trust Howard, Florence or Virgil.

Noemí takes a bath and falls asleep. She dreams that Virgil walks in. She’s unable to move and he kisses her. Then, the ceiling disappears and she sees a snake emerge from an egg, forming itself into an ouroboros. She awakes dressed in an open bathrobe, having sleepwalked into Virgil’s room, dripping and barefoot. He offers her some wine and walks her back.

The next morning Noemí tries to see Catalina, but Florence insists isn’t not possible. She gets angry, saying that Florence has demanded that she warn her before visiting Catalina but has set up a schedule where it’s impossible for Noemí to see her.

In her room, she is reading a moldy book when she notices her wallpaper seems to move, and the colors change. She rushes into the bathroom and slashes her face. The room returns to normal, but she doesn’t know what caused the hallucinations. Florence and Virgil show up, insisting they heard her yell, though Noemí is certain she didn’t.

Finally, Noemí decides she needs to depart High Place for the time being. She intends to come back, but she knows getting away from there will be better for her for now. Virgil agrees to take her to town tomorrow.

Noemí packs a suitcase, with plans to go to the larger town nearby of Pachuca, write her father and find a psychiatrist to help Catalina. At dinner, Virgil mentions that they plan on re-opening the mines soon, using Catalina’s money to fund the re-opening.

Before she leaves, they take Noemí to see Howard, who is lying in bed. He is very pale and one of his legs is badly bloated and covered in boils. Virgil urges her to get closer, she refuses, but he forces her. Then, Howard puts his tongue down her throat.

Suddenly, she has a vision of herself in a cave. A young Howard Doyle is drinking a burning liquid from a cup in hopes of finding a remedy for his ailment. He’s surrounded by poor townsfolk and a priest. This liquid they use for healing, Doyle believes can grant eternal life. After he drinks, he kills the priest and lights the cave on fire with all the people in it. Doyle and a pregnant woman leave the cave by boat.

When the vision stops, Noemí wants to throw up. Francis gives her some water. He explains that Howard discovered a mushroom that could extend life, cure diseases and keep you healthy. What Noemí experienced was something they call “the gloom” — it’s a repository of memories. The fungus grows around and under the house, and it can create symbiotic relationships with its host (“Mycorrhiza”). Collectively, it creates a web of memories which they call the gloom.

In other words, the hallucination and vivid dreams she’s been having is because of the fungus connected to the house. Catalina, too, is not crazy. She’s been affected by the gloom. The fungus affects people in different ways. Some of them die. For others, it addles their brains, which is why their servants don’t really speak. For others, like Noemí, they have a symbiotic relationship with the fungus, so they don’t have those effects.

For the Doyles, their blood is special. It is especially potent with them and can make them immortal. Howard has lived many lives, in different bodies. He is probably around three hundred years old. He can transfer his consciousness from the gloom into a different body. For generations, the bloodline has been kept in the family, hence the incest and marrying of cousins. Agnes and Alice were his sisters.

Now, Howard wants Noemí to be part of their family. Francis says Howard won’t permit Noemí to leave. His father, Richard, wanted to leave and instead the gloom drove him mad. It’s clear Noemí is very compatible with the fungus, and they want her to stay. The women in the family have had trouble bearing children, and they need money. Noemí could provide both.

Noemí angrily tries to leave, but is suddenly sapped of strength. She sees the ritual that began it all. Doyle must’ve done his research and perfected this ritual to ensure it would work. After the pregnant woman gives birth, Howard cuts off pieces of the baby to feed to everyone. They then throw the woman who has given birth into a pit by the altar. By sacrificing her, she will erupt with the fungus to serve as the mind of the gloom.

Noemí is still having a vision but doesn’t realize it. She’s now back in the room. She tells Doyle she will not join them and attacks him. But he turns into a snake that wraps around her.

In her ear, the voice of the woman keeps telling her to “Open your eyes.”

The next morning, Virgil wants to see Noemí, but Noemí rushes out instead. Something in the air makes her run out of breath and collapse. Then Virgil goes out and picks her up to bring her back in. He forces her to bathe while he watches.

Dr. Cummins comes to inspect her. He admits that he’s a Doyle, but a distant relative. He also tells her that if she tries to leave, the house will attack again.

Privately, Francis tells Noemí he wants to help her. They must speak Spanish, because the house doesn’t know Spanish. He also kept the tincture, which can lessen the house’s hold on you. Cigarettes also irritate the house. Francis says that Howard wants Noemí to join the family by marrying Francis. It’ll be better for her for the time being if she goes along with it. Howard won’t outright force Noemí to marry him, since trying to control everyone’s actions all the time is too exhausting. They have to be somewhat compliant.

Noemí takes the tincture, which puts her to sleep as Marta had warned it would. She dreams of Ruth, telling her she needs to kill Howard and that she (Ruth) didn’t do it right. Noemí remembers to open her eyes and then the vision disappears.

Noemí speaks to Virgil who admits that they buried bodies in the cemetery to help keep the soil fertile. He also tells her about how the sterility from inbreeding (plus a need for more money) led to their need to branch out from their own family. They tell her to write a letter saying that she plans to stay until the end of the year. At that point, she’ll write another, saying she intends to be married.

She writes the letter and Francis extricates her from the situation. When she asks for a weapon, he offers her the blade from his razor.

Now that the jig is up, they allow Noemí access to Catalina more freely. Noemí is also having Francis secretly administer the tincture to Catalina as well. Florence has Noemí try on her wedding dress which is stitch together from their other wedding dresses as part of a tradition.

Francis notes that Howard needs to transmutate soon. He wasn’t strong enough to for a long time after he and many members of the family were shot by Ruth. Before that, he was waiting for a man in the family to come of age (24-ish). Virgil had been too young.

Francis also tells her that when Noemí flees, he’s can’t come along. They’re interconnected and it would make them easier to find. Catalina once tried to flee (when she was still taking the tincture), but she didn’t have the right supplies. Francis has been collecting supplies for Noemí. Noemí keeps insisting he come with her, but Francis keeps trying to tell her it’ll never work. He’s too deeply ingrained.

That night, Noemí dreams of Ruth. They converse. Noemí asks Ruth if she thought a Doyle could ever leave. Ruth says she thought she could run away, but there’s a compulsion to stay.

That evening, they have the wedding ceremony. A banquet and then a ceremony. As part of the ceremony, two pieces of mushroom are handed to Noemí and Francis, and they are told to eat it. Afterwards, Noemí goes back to her room. Virgil shows up, telling her that knows she’s been taking the tincture.

He tells her that the mushroom was an aphrodisiac, and he moves to take off her dress. Noemí finds that a small part of her desires him, but she also remembers about her razor. She shoves him away, and grabs the tincture from him and finds her razor. She takes a sip and goes to find Catalina.

Noemí finds Catalina unresponsive. Mary tries to stop her from taking Catalina, and Noemí has no choice but to slash Mary with the razor. Francis shows up and together they get Catalina so they can leave.

However, Florence stops them. She has a gun. She marches them into Howard’s room, saying that they need to transmutate Howard now. He is going to take over Francis’s body. Noemí regrets not killing Virgil when she had the chance.

They force the three of them to pray, and Noemí hears a buzzing sound. Then, she notices that Catalina has gotten ahold of the doctor’s scalpel. She stabs Howard in the face, causing Florence, Francis and Dr, Cummins to spasm and fall. Florence moves to shoot Noemí, but Francis lunges at her. After a scuffle, Florence lies shot.

Howard is still alive and compels Francis to obey him, but Noemí grabs the gun from Francis. She shoots Howard twice, grabs Francis and flees with him and Catalina.

As they run through the house, they see visions of the bannister turning to eels, but Francis says the house it causing these visions to get them to stay. They find Francis’s hidden stash of supplies in a small pantry. They don’t have the keys, so they head toward the burial chamber to escape the house.

Noemí recognizes the chamber from her visions, the place where the ritual was held and the woman was thrown into the pit. On a dais, her body is still there, frozen and sprouting mushrooms that erupt from all sides — it’s the source of the buzzing Noemí had heard around the house. Noemí realizes that the woman was Agnes.

Noemí now understands that before Doyle, there was a ritual priests would do involving the mushrooms and sacrificing themselves (letting other people eat the priest’s flesh) to help pass on memories to their people. Doyle must’ve used this and built upon it, sacrificing Agnes to serve as a central hub and brain for this mechanism, and allowing children to be eaten to fortify its bonds.

Suddenly, Virgil shows up. He says that Noemí has played into his plan. He let her have the tincture on purpose, so she could injure Howard. Virgil wanted him dead so that he could control the gloom instead. The tincture doesn’t last long though, and spores are still everywhere.

In her hand, the knife turns hot, forcing Noemí to drop it. However, Francis intervenes and he and Virgil fight. As they do, Noemí realizes that Agnes is in an eternal nightmare and the buzzing is her voice. She needs to be released. With that, Noemí tosses her lantern at Agnes’s face. Virgil and Francis collapse. Catalina stabs Virgil in the eye.

Catalina and Noemí carry Francis out. They reach the gates of High Place and behind them, the house is ablaze.

A few days later, they are all resting at Dr. Camarillo’s place. Marta brought them more of the tincture, which they all took. Catalina and Noemí experienced headaches and nausea, but Francis fell into a long sleep. The police and her father are all headed here to find out what happened. Noemí assures Catalina that her father will smooth things over.

When Francis awakes, Noemí tells him that he can come stay with them in Mexico City. He tells her that he dreamed that the house had repaired itself with him inside. He dreamed that it was even grander than before. Francis tells her that some mushrooms sprout more easily after a forest fire. Francis wonders if he should kill himself to end it all for good.

The book ends with them kissing. Noemí fears that there may be an inevitability and curse in his blood, but hopes that together they can remake their world to be kinder and sweeter.

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I just skimmed a bit of your post because I’m going to read it soon :D

yay happy reading!

In Chapter 26, Catalina stabs Virgil in the eye.

Thanks! I’ve corrected that typo, cheers!

this novel is too hearted and horror, i can imagine the things in my mind from the novel. i can’t wait to see it adaptation.

Mexican Gothic : Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Dark Fairy Tale

Avatar for Geoffrey Reiter

Geoffrey Reiter

S ilvia Moreno-Garcia has been publishing fiction for around a decade now, including half a dozen novels in the past five years. But her star rose significantly this summer with the widely touted release of her latest novel, Mexican Gothic . Since its publication four months ago, Mexican Gothic has sold well and earned its author widespread praise and numerous accolades. As its very title suggests, the novel is a hybrid of genres, fusing historical, literary, and cinematic motifs from her home country with the classic horror tropes of countless English-language Gothic texts.

mexican gothic essay

Silvia Moreno-Garcia Source

But Mexican Gothic ’s narrative complexity exceeds even the duality indicated by its title. Moreno-Garcia reads deeply and broadly; indeed, her primary advice to aspiring writers is to “[r]ead everything—nonfiction, fiction, memoirs, novellas, pulp, obscure stuff, the canon and the obscure.” If her novel cannily plays with the expected fixtures of the Gothic mode, it also relies heavily on a distinct yet parallel genre: the fairy tale. To me, it is precisely with adroit balancing out of the weird Gothic and the fairy tale realms that makes Mexican Gothic such a fascinating read, drawing out the tensions between fear and hope that inhabit the liminal boundaries of both genres.

Mexican Gothic begins not in a fictive medieval past or the misty fens of Victorian sensation novels but in the boisterous and colorful world of 1950s Mexico City. The protagonist, Noemí Taboada, is a twenty-two-year-old socialite, who delights in casual flirtations with local boys but really wants to commence a graduate degree in anthropology. Her wealthy father reluctantly consents, with one vital caveat: Noemí must locate her cousin Catalina and confirm that she is safe. Catalina not long ago married Virgil Doyle, the dashing and mysterious scion of a transplanted British family that owned a now-defunct silver mine.

Thus it is that Noemí travels to High Place, the decaying Doyle estate. Here she finds Catalina in poor health, physically and mentally, though the cause of her lassitude and distress remain ambiguous. Noemí increasingly runs into difficulties during her stay at High Place as she seeks to navigate the complex family dynamics of the aggressive Virgil; his frail and casually racist father, Howard; and Howard’s imperious niece, Florence. She finds a possible ally in Florence’s wan son Francis, who incurs his mother’s wrath in assisting her. It will come as no surprise that High Place is an environment haunted by secrets, secrets that Noemí must uncover if she is ever to be of concrete help to her ailing cousin.

O n the one hand, Mexican Gothic is, indeed, a Gothic novel—unabashedly, ostentatiously, gloriously so. I first learned of the book through Maureen Corrigan’s review at NPR , in which she draws attention to several female Gothic antecedents: Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Brontë, Daphne Du Maurier. Such observations are well-founded; Moreno-Garcia even explicitly invokes Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights . And other female Gothic texts also lurk at the margins, most obviously Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s classic, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” with its storyline of a woman trapped by medically minded men as she goes mad in a diseased mansion.

Moreno-Garcia’s characters can’t fully convince themselves that their world truly can be a fairy tale kingdom. But neither can they be satisfied with a universe that is nothing but a nexus of cosmic horror. But as soon as I heard Corrigan’s summary, I knew there was another major branch of literary horror antecedents that she hadn’t brought up: the weird fiction of H. P. Lovecraft and one of his own major forerunners, William Hope Hodgson . Moreno-Garcia has explicitly named Hodgson’s classic horror story “ The Voice in the Night ” as an influence and has even co-edited a horror anthology called Fungi , inspired by his work (fungi figure heavily in Mexican Gothic ). She’s also co-edited an anthology of Lovecraftian stories, She Walks in Shadows (alternately titled Cthulhu’s Daughters ), and has named Lovecraft as the writer she would most like to meet.

This doesn’t mean she is oblivious to the tensions inherent in Lovecraft’s work, his reputation made increasingly ambivalent from a growing discomfort at his well-known racism. Contemporary horror aficionados often wrestle with the implications of his beliefs, in texts like Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom or Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country (now an acclaimed HBO series ). As a woman of color herself, Moreno-Garcia frequently acknowledges Lovecraft’s complicated legacy; it’s hardly a coincidence that the eugenicist patriarch of her novel’s family has the same name as Lovecraft (Howard). Noemí holds her own against the oppressive whiteness of her ostensible hosts. As Corrigan’s review suggests, the inordinate power that predatory men may hold over women is a major site of fear in this horror, as in so many Gothic tales that precede it.

But Lovecraft remains beloved for a reason, and in his and Hodgson’s weird fiction there is a fear at once more philosophically existential and more visceral than the gendered fears of Radcliffe, Gilman, DuMaurier, and the Brontës. That is cosmic fear, the terror that humans exist alone in an uncaring or even downright hostile cosmos. This is a universal fear, one that may afflict anyone (at least, anyone living in our secular age); indeed, it is, I would contend, the logical response to a skeptical atheist worldview.

If Moreno-Garcia’s novel is most obviously concerned with the horrors inherent in male-female power dynamics, she indicates at various moments that she isn’t unaware of the force behind cosmic terror. A key motivator for certain characters derives from their desire to cheat death, a desire borne out of an unspoken dread at the implications of dying. No price becomes too high to pay in order to stave off the cessation of consciousness. Mexican Gothic ’s use of fungi also taps into this fear. Throughout Hodgson’s corpus, fungi threaten to swallow up his characters, to rob them of their core human identity and transform them (as scholar Kelly Hurley has noted) into ab-human “Things.” If that horror helps motivate her villains, it also haunts her heroes—perhaps not articulated, but lurking in the shadows around them.

B ut horror stories aren’t the only tales about protagonists who must face their fears: that’s also true of fairy tales. As G. K. Chesterton observed (and Neil Gaiman has adapted ), classic fairy tales affirm the potency of our fears but promise a hero to vanquish them. Noemí’s cousin is enamored of fairy tales, though this gets her in trouble. Just as her Gothic readings may have led her to look for a Rochester figure in Virgil Doyle, her love of fairy tales may lead her to see a prince’s palace in High Place. Most true märchen force their characters to undergo countless trials before their happily ever after, but Catalina seems to have been self-censoring that suffering and seeking to skip ahead to the “fairy tale ending.”

As a result, Mexican Gothic seems at times to be interrogating the fairy tale account of reality. Clearly, on some level, it has deceived Catalina. The more pragmatic Noemí, on the other hand, is able to remain (for the most part) lucid in the phantasmagoric environs of High Place—or at least to fight her way back to lucidity. Within her anthropological frame of mind, fairy tales are simply oral, traditional constructions, by-products of culture rather than repositories of wisdom.

And yet, despite Noemí’s skepticism, Mexican Gothic is hardly a straightforward repudiation of the fairy tale genre. If Catalina’s excessively rosy appropriation of fairy tale conventions blinds her to danger, the blinding is at least in part self-inflicted. She might crave love at first sight, as in Charles Perrault’s “Sleeping Beauty”; but from Perrault’s “Little Red Riding Hood” or “Bluebeard,” she might have learned that men are appetitive predators. Dark paths wind through dark woods in fairyland, a realm of tribulation and testing. If Gothic horror and fairy tale are distinct genres, they are also adjacent, even overlapping in certain liminal twilight spaces. And Mexican Gothic may be situated in such a space.

If Christian fairy tale expositors like Chesterton are correct, many fairy tales point (however obliquely or symbolically) to the triumph of the hero Christ and the wedding supper of the lamb. The prince and princess, living happily ever after, typologically foreshadow the eschaton . Contra modern “realism” that situates itself only in the mundane, unenchanted realm of our senses, fairy tales represent a greater, more transcendent realism. They telescope time and space to remind us that, for we who are Christ’s bride, this tragic world climaxes in a divine comedy.

Moreno-Garcia certainly never approaches any such triumph in her text. Often, the imagery and language might seem to subvert, even invert, such a reading. The Doyles cultivate their own blasphemous parodies of sacramental rituals, from a horrific wedding ceremony to any number of monstrous perversions of the Eucharist. A running refrain at High Place is the Latin text of John 1:14, “ Et Verbum caro factum est ”: “And the Word was made flesh.”

Yet this book is aptly titled Mexican Gothic , and folk wisdom and Catholic liturgy are both key features of Mexican identity. Noemí is at times able to receive strength from her church rituals, however habitual and underdeveloped they may be. And fairy tale allusions abound in the closing pages, comically appropriated at times yet suggestive of a more profound applicability. Moreno-Garcia evinces some hesitance about fully accepting the cosmic authenticity of such accounts, commenting at one point that “he needed a story and she needed to tell one, so she did until she didn’t care whether she was lying or speaking the truth” (300).

Moreno-Garcia’s characters can’t fully convince themselves that their world truly can be a fairy tale kingdom. But neither can they be satisfied with a universe that is nothing but a nexus of cosmic horror. The final existentialist moments, then, gesture toward a longing, a desperate wish that communal storytelling might create relationships by which we might buttress one another against the void. It is an inadequate response, but it could be the start of a fruitful journey. Fairyland is a dark, even horrible, place—but follow the path all the way through to its farthest verge, and you may spot a certain wedding feast, where the celebrants truly are living happily ever after.

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  • College Literature

Citational Gothic: Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Archive

  • Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado
  • Johns Hopkins University Press
  • Volume 50, Number 2-3, Spring-Summer 2023
  • pp. 323-348
  • 10.1353/lit.2023.a902221
  • View Citation

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Mexican Canadian writer Silvia Moreno-Garcia's meteoric rise after the publication of Mexican Gothic (2020) has placed her at the center of contemporary genre fiction. This essay discusses the ways in which her approach to genre, and particularly to the Gothic, is informed by a citational dynamic in relation to what the article calls her "Mexican Archive"—that is, the rich network of references to the history and symbolic production of Mexico. The essay contends that this archive sets Moreno-Garcia apart from other Latinx fiction writers in her disengagement from US-centered ideas of race and Mexicanness. The article discusses in the first part the ways in which we could think about the role of Mexico and Mexican culture in Moreno-Garcia's work. In the second part, a reading of Mexican Gothic unfolds the ways in which this archive intersects with the citational practices and symbolic conventions of genre fiction.

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mexican gothic essay

Mexican Gothic

Silvia moreno-garcia, everything you need for every book you read..

Sexism, Female Independence, and Power Theme Icon

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  1. Mexican Gothic BOOK REVIEW

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  2. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Review and Summary

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  3. Mexican Gothic Book Review

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  4. Flash Review

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  5. Mexican Gothic

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  6. Book Review: Mexican Gothic

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COMMENTS

  1. Mexican Gothic Study Guide

    Mexican Gothic focuses heavily on Mexico's history as a colonized nation. When the Spanish arrived in Mexico near the end of the 16th century, they found a wealth of mineral riches—gold and silver chief among them. The Spaniards built large mines, and by the 18th century, Mexico was one of the world's largest producers of silver.

  2. Mexican Gothic Essay Topics

    Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of "Mexican Gothic" by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student ...

  3. Review: 'Mexican Gothic,' By Silvia Moreno-Garcia : NPR

    Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic is a thoroughly enjoyable, thought-provoking novel. I want to discuss it around tea, preferably while in the mountains, preferably somewhere well-lit.

  4. Colonialism, Eugenics And Downright Terror In 'Mexican Gothic'

    The direct inspiration for this novel was a real town in Mexico that is located in kind of the middle part of the country in the mountains. It's called Real del Monte or Mineral del Monte. It was ...

  5. How Mexican Gothic fits into the legacy of the postcolonial gothic

    Mexican Gothic wears its genre on its cover. The title isn't telling you a lie: This book, with its decaying English manor, its psychosexual secrets, its lavish aesthetic, and its sense of deep ...

  6. Mexican Gothic

    Mexican Gothic is a gloriously moody adventure. Spooky, smart, and wry. Chic, no-nonsense Noemi Taboada is one hell of a tour guide through this world of mystery, scandal and spirits. Silvia Moreno-Garcia writes with assurance and playfulness and this novel is masterful. —Victor LaValle, author of The Changeling. Darkly brilliant and captivating.

  7. Mexican Gothic Summary and Study Guide

    Mexican Gothic is a feminist Gothic novel by Mexican writer Silvia Moreno-Garcia, who currently resides in Canada.Set in 1950s Mexico City and the burned-out mining town of El Triunfo, the novel is a horror-tinged thriller in which Noemí Taboada, a socialite with aspirations to become an anthropologist, goes to El Triunfo to rescue her cousin Catalina from the Doyles.

  8. Mexican Gothic review: Silvia Moreno-Garcia's new book is ...

    There is something monstrously fecund, something growing and decaying and rotting, in High Place, the center of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's new novel Mexican Gothic. High Place is an English-style ...

  9. "Mexican Gothic," a terrifying novel on evils of eugenics

    The twisted evil of eugenics made real in the novel 'Mexican Gothic'. Noemí Taboada, the heroine of Silvia Moreno-Garcia 's novel, "Mexican Gothic," lives for pleasure, and in 1950s ...

  10. 'Mexican Gothic' Review: Silvia Moreno-Garcia Reinvigorates A ...

    A young woman tries to free her cousin from a dangerous living situation in a crumbling family mansion in Silvia Moreno-Garcia's new novel. Mexican Gothic injects fresh blood into a classic genre.

  11. Mexican Gothic Themes

    Sexism, Female Independence, and Power. Throughout Mexican Gothic, the protagonist, Noemí Taboada, undermines masculine forms of authority and challenges conventions surrounding outdated gender roles. She begins the novel as a socialite in Mexico City, where the only expectation of wealthy young women is that they "devote [their] time to ...

  12. Mexican Gothic Summary & Study Guide

    Mexican Gothic Summary & Study Guide includes comprehensive information and analysis to help you understand the book. This study guide contains the following sections: This detailed literature summary also contains Quotes and a Free Quiz on Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. The following version of this book was used to create the guide ...

  13. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Plot Summary

    Mexican Gothic Summary. Next. Chapter 1. Noemí Taboada receives a summons from her father while at a lavish costume party. She cuts her date short and returns home, where her father hands her a mysterious letter from Catalina, her cousin. Catalina claims that her husband's family treats her cruelly, that she's being kept as a prisoner, and ...

  14. Mexican Gothic author Silvia Moreno-Garcia on why white supremacy ...

    To celebrate, the Vox Book Club met up with Silvia Moreno-Garcia to discuss her novel Mexican Gothic, our October book pick. Moreno-Garcia, who in addition to being a bestselling author has a ...

  15. Mexican Gothic Themes

    Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of "Mexican Gothic" by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student ...

  16. Book review: "Mexican Gothic" by Silvia Moreno-Garcia expands

    Silvia Moreno-Garcia's "Mexican Gothic" was described as "a thoroughly enjoyable, thought-provoking novel" in a review by NPR, and I cannot find any room to disagree with this sentiment. Taking place in an isolated mansion in 1950s Mexico, Moreno-Garcia's 2020 novel tells the story of Noemí's quest to find out the meaning behind ...

  17. Mexican Gothic

    Mexican Gothic is a 2020 gothic horror novel by Mexican Canadian author Silvia Moreno-Garcia. It centers on a young woman investigating her cousin's claims that her husband is trying to murder her. The novel landed on multiple bestseller lists and Moreno-Garcia's writing has received comparisons to Daphne du Maurier and Guillermo del Toro.

  18. Mexican Gothic: Synopsis & Chapter-by-Chapter Summary

    Chapter-by-Chapter Summary. Chapter 1. Noemí Taboada returns from a costume party at the Tuñóns. Her date, Hugo Duarte, bids her goodnight. Noemí is twenty-two and a bit of a flighty socialite. Hugo is not a serious suitor because his position is too far below hers.

  19. Mexican Gothic Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

    Their driver cannot be found, so they must walk into the city to find a taxi. The man, Hugo Duarte, carries a papier-mâché horse head as part of his costume. The woman, Noemí, told Hugo to dress as a horse so that they could win the costume contest together, but she changed her costume at the last moment.

  20. Mexican Gothic : Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Dark Fairy Tale

    But Mexican Gothic's narrative complexity exceeds even the duality indicated by its title.Moreno-Garcia reads deeply and broadly; indeed, her primary advice to aspiring writers is to "[r]ead everything—nonfiction, fiction, memoirs, novellas, pulp, obscure stuff, the canon and the obscure." If her novel cannily plays with the expected fixtures of the Gothic mode, it also relies heavily ...

  21. Project MUSE

    Abstract. Abstract: Mexican Canadian writer Silvia Moreno-Garcia's meteoric rise after the publication of Mexican Gothic (2020) has placed her at the center of contemporary genre fiction. This essay discusses the ways in which her approach to genre, and particularly to the Gothic, is informed by a citational dynamic in relation to what the article calls her "Mexican Archive"—that is, the ...

  22. Sexism, Female Independence, and Power Theme in Mexican Gothic

    Below you will find the important quotes in Mexican Gothic related to the theme of Sexism, Female Independence, and Power. Chapter 1 Quotes. Noemí, like any good socialite, shopped at the Palacio de Hierro, painted her lips with Elizabeth Arden lipstick, owned a couple of very fine furs, spoke English with remarkable ease, courtesy of the nuns ...

  23. Mexican Gothic Chapter 15 Summary & Analysis

    Analysis. Noemí knocks repeatedly at Marta 's door, but the woman never answers. She rejoins Francis and the two walk back toward the town square. They meet Dr. Camarillo at the clinic, who introduces himself to Francis, saying that he used to play cards with Francis's father. Dr.