Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
When Heathcliff's not such a fun guy after all
Mexican Gothic doesn’t immediately scream “horror novel”. Despite the book’s suggestive title, its cover is rather more vague about its genre, downplaying any sense of spookiness. Similarly, the story itself is unhurried about reaching its nightmarish destination, content to indulging in a gothic vibe without showing its true colors until quite far in.
But it gets there eventually — and when it does, Mexican Gothic turns out to be a twisted, creepy, and admirably intelligent piece of horror fiction.
The story is set in 1950’s Mexico, a setting which evokes conflict between tradition and modernity. Our heroine, a somewhat fickle socialite named Noemí, lives a life poised somewhere between the two; while there are outdated social expectations (to court, to marry, to become a wife and mother), many of her peers seem content to indulge in their materialistic lives of leisure — to court (and none too prudishly either) without following through with the rest.
Except Noemí has greater aspirations than that. What she’d really like to do is study anthropology at university. The problem is her wealthy father is resistant to the idea. That is, until he must recruit Noemí to assist with a sensitive family matter. He promises that if she helps him, then he’ll support her academic pursuits.
He asks Noemí to visit her married cousin, Catalina, who has sent him some concerning letters. She sounds hysterical, if not outright crazy. She implies that her husband, Virgil, is poisoning her. Noemí is sent to the rural town where she lives to check on her and help resolve whatever situation she might find.
What she discovers is a cold and foreboding mansion, a secretive family with suffocatingly strict rules, and a sense that something is indeed very wrong with Catalina’s situation — but no idea at all what.
Mexican Gothic oozes a Brontë-esque atmosphere of apprehension and dread. It is a slow burn literary horror novel that takes time to build the world and spins its tale, introducing its horror elements only gradually but with such a deft touch that they never feel unharmonious nor (as outlandish as they are) do they ever feel anything less that perfectly plausible within this story.
The longer Noemí is in this house, the more she herself seems to fall under its mysterious spell… She has vivid lurid dreams, she sleepwalks, she has visions that imply Virgil’s family have a cruel and violent past.
Gradually, she starts to piece together a mystery that transcends not just her worst fears, but science itself… Only she can save Catalina from this great evil that has trapped her — but by now Noemí herself is a prisoner too.
Eugenics, immortality, and parasitic fungi combine to result in a remarkably original and perverse horror story that is hard not to admire. Despite the novel in no way relating to the phenomenon of Nazi scientists fleeing to Latin America following WWII, it certainly relates to it via its combination of milieu and interests. More pointedly, Mexican Gothic is a wonderful example of an author in full command of all their puzzle pieces (Noemí’s pre-existing interest in anthropology and inherited knowledge of dyes are both beneficial for her along her journey).
Mexican Gothic is a very impressively written horror novel that will satisfy both your highbrow literary cravings as well as that more baser hunger for horror that will leave you full, nourished, and with plenty to digest.