Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Not To Be Missed!

Recently, an interviewer and fellow author suggested that Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia might be a good comp title for Silk: Caroline’s Story. A comp title, by the way, is a familiar title that others might compare to a book of interest—for example, she might say to prospective readers, “If you liked Mexican Gothic, then you’ll love Silk.”

How wonderful to be compared to that amazing work!  After that comp-title suggestion, I of course picked Mexican Gothic as my fun vacation beach read while we went to Daytona on vacation last week.  I’d even already put it on my e-reader, which I actually did not take onto the beach this time, just read in our condo when I wasn’t on the beach or by the pool with a paperback.

So glad I read it, even if I don’t typically go for that genre.  I should have been clued into the type of story it was, given the term ‘gothic’ in the name, but I went into it expecting something a bit more… like Silk! Hah, comp titles work both ways!  I do recognize some of that same energy there, especially around Jessie (so if you were most fascinated by Jessie, you will likely be enthralled by Mexican Gothic). Of course, Mexican Gothic’s main character, Noemí, is different than any of Silk’s characters, at least for the first book of my trilogy; I’d say she’s most like Vivian, actually, in Homespun, the last installment of The Silk Trilogy—whom the interviewer has yet to meet.  Okay, I’m warming to the idea of it as a comp title, except I really don’t think they’re the same genre!  Silk has just a touch of Southern Gothic in a book that others compare to Jane Austen, whereas Mexican Gothic eventually swallows you whole with the horror. Oh wait, I did see her writing compared to Charlotte Brontë’s, actually... I think Moreno-Garcia uses the technical category of ‘speculative fiction’ instead of horror, perhaps. Maybe speculative fiction is a broader category? I almost never pick up horror reads on purpose.  Stephen King put me off that genre the first time I dipped my toes in those murky waters as a teenager, but more writing like this may make me quite the fan.

Mexican Gothic is about a young socialite in the 1950s who ventures away from Mexico City out to a rural village community in the mountains to check on her cousin Catalina. Newly-married Catalina has sent a worrisome letter, but when Noemí’s father tried to follow up with Catalina’s husband, Virgil brushed off his concerns. The gothic mansion that Noemí arrives at was founded perhaps a century before by Virgil’s English ancestors who reopened the old silver mine there; it had re-closed during the Mexican Revolution, and the family’s glory has since faded. The grand house is full of mold and operates with only a skeleton of the staff it once held. Noemí is determined not to abandon her cousin Catalina, but the longer she stays, the more the manor’s strange energy starts to affect her, too.

I loved this wonderfully-written, suspenseful story!  It’s now ranked as my #1 horror novel of all time, and I highly recommend it to anyone not too faint of heart.  The Mexican setting added a somewhat-exotic-to-me, fascinating air to the whole novel. So interesting to see the world from Noemí’s point of view, as Mexico really is the center of her world, truly a country full of variety—she’s from urban, modern, massive Mexico City; she leaves for the English manor near the rural village in the mountains, where she yearns for a carefree vacation to Acapulco—and to go off to their National University. Mexico is her world! 

I did have the feeling, however, that this novel was perhaps initially written as a vampire story.  The pale residents of the manor, the missing mirror no longer on the wall near the entrance, the stained-glass windows instead of more reflective ones, the old host only drinking strange-tasting wine at dinner and foregoing food…  Perhaps that was just to set the mood or to throw out a red herring.  I felt misled, especially since there was never much alternative explanation given for these overtly-vampirish tendencies.  Nevertheless, it somehow gave me a familiar, “Ooh! Vampires!” reaction that maybe made the actual scenario a little more familiar-feeling than it would otherwise have, as it was so peculiar in the end.  Well-done, but unique (to me, at least, as someone who rarely reads ‘speculative fiction’).  If Moreno-Garcia hadn’t gone that route, I wonder if I’d have had fewer hooks to really sink into the story with?  Such an artfully-crafted novel MUST have done this on purpose, simply to help draw us readers in. In the end, however, the antagonists were not so prosaic as vampires (who are not always prosaic, of course, but this was the classic setting!). No, this book was increasingly fascinating as I read along.  Speaking of which—I wasn’t hooked from page one.  I’d read many pages before I knew that I really wanted to continue with it, so if it doesn’t grab you straight off, stay with it!

Again, I don’t normally read horror, so what seems ‘extreme’ to me may seem relatively tame to aficionados of the genre. I wouldn’t know. And that ‘extreme’ graphic horror only lasted for a few pages, really, towards the end.  So don’t be scared off based solely on my review.  Perhaps Mexican Gothic is horror for people who don’t read horror.  I personally highly recommend it.  Five stars. Amazing, gripping novel set in Mexico. Not to be missed.