Mexican Gothic Review (Spoiler-Free)

 

When I first heard of Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, all I knew about it was its title and a depiction of a dark-skinned woman against a gorgeous damask cover. Honestly, that’s all it took for me to take interest in the book itself. But when I was told that it was a story with a Lovecraftian storyline, I had to devour it within days.

As many of you know or don’t know, I’m a rabid H.P. Lovecraft fan. Yes, he was a raging racist piece of shit during his life. But even he had standards. Even he refused to associate with actual Nazis and he told them to fuck right off. So, that has to count for something, I suppose. On top of that, the man died alone, young, unfulfilled and with nobody but his old biddy aunts to mourn him. He never got to enjoy his legacy. And on top of that, even, young people of color are defying his racism and enjoying his works, anyways. Garcia-Moreno’s novel is an example of this reclamation, in which she satirizes and criticizes elements that Lovecraft himself would have lionized. If the Lovecraftian aspect of the story is what grabs your attention the most, then allow me, a fellow Lovecraft fan, to elaborate on said elements that Mexican Gothic contains:

-It has the obsession with rot and decay that we see in his short stories, “The Tomb” and “In The Vault”.

-It has the obsession with complex, intelligent fungus that we see in the short story, “The Whisperer in Darkness”.

-It has the degenerate inclinations that we see in the short stories, “The Dunwich Horror” and “The Lurking Fear”.

-And of course, it has good old anglocentric racism (which is flipped as being witnessed from the perspective of a woman of color, rather than a value perpetuated by a racist white author).

Now, if Lovecraft isn’t really your jam and you don’t care about his influence on the story, then read on for a mostly spoiler-free review of the story on its own merits. I must warn you, however, that there are a lot of unpleasant elements in this story. First of all, it is a horror story. It contains elements of gore and an excessive amount of bodily fluids, such as bile and vomit. It also contains a lot of disturbing elements such as incest, cannibalism, racism and eugenics and an excessive amount of cruelty perpetuated against women and against Mexican workers. So if that is a bit too much for you, I understand if Mexican Gothic ain’t it. Otherwise, keep on reading!

Mexican Gothic begins in Mexico City in the 1950s. The protagonist is a spunky socialite named Noemí Taboada, who has been tasked with performing a wellness check on her cousin. Noemí has to stay in a fictional little town called El Triunfo, where a reclusive family of British immigrants, the family of her cousin’s husband, resides. As the story progresses, Noemí discovers a great amount of strange things about High Place (the British household where she’s staying), the Doyle family and the little town of El Triunfo.

The story itself is an intricate, addicting page-turner. It reels you in with Noemí’s sparkling personality, keeps you reading because of her cousin’s bizarre ramblings and compels you to finish it in order to unravel layer after layer of bizarre events. And when I say bizarre, I truly mean abstract Lovecraftian bizarre.

In terms of characters, there are only three characters worth a damn in the story. Noemí is a strong character in an untraditionally strong way. She loves fashion, parties, champagne, her corvette and smoking. But, she’s also an intellectual with a thirst for knowledge, who begs her father to allow her to pursue her Master’s degree. (Which was unheard of in that time, since women of high status were encouraged to find husbands instead.)

Noemí’s cousin, Catalina, is quite the opposite from her. She’s a meek, kind person who has her head stuck in the hazy pink clouds of her romance novels and her fairytales. Personally, I loved Catalina. We don’t see much of her, since she is heavily handled by the members of High Place. But, I see a lot of myself in her. I’m not a strong, outspoken person who’s grounded in reality, to be honest. So, it was nice to read about a character like Catalina. On top of that, she isn’t just a useless character or an impetus for Noemí’s adventure. Catalina is a crucial character who finds strength from her horrifying experiences at High Place to save Noemí.

And finally, there is sweet Francis Doyle, who is a friend (and more) to Noemí. Francis has a simple existence at High Place, which is antithetical to that of Noemí’s. But he isn’t cruel or cold the way his mother, his cousin and his great uncle are. While he does have an inextricable connection with High Place, he also has a detached relationship with it that allows him to forge a connection with Noemí.

Personally, my only critique of the characters is that I wish there was a moment of hesitation with Florence Doyle. As deeply entrenched as she was in the (figuratively AND physically) toxic Doyle family structure, she lost a lot because of it. It would’ve been more enriching to the story if the reader was a allowed a quick glimpse into her true mind.

Despite some of the disgusting and sordid elements of the story, it also has a lot of romanticism to it. Everything from the shining socialite aesthetic to the decrepit, yet melodramatic Wuthering Heights aesthetic is deliciously alluring to me. But it is Moreno-Garcia’s writing style that especially captures my attention. Nowadays, the writing industry demands writing styles without character. Writers are constantly told to make their writing concise and to not use “fancy words”. (a.k.a , nix all the Latinate words and rely exclusively on Anglo-Saxon words.) But Moreno-Garcia tears the rulebook in half with words like “mordant”, “soporific” and “paroxysm”. And what matters the most to me is that her choice in language reflects the reasoning behind my own choice in language as a writer. People like Garcia-Moreno and I don’t use “fancy words” to show off or be pretentious. We use those words because we are Latinas and we have a deeper insight into those words that non-Latinx people simply don’t have.

Ultimately, I find Mexican Gothic to be a crucial story for young women like me. Especially young women of color. Not only is it the story that we romantic bookworms grew up craving to read, but it subverts a specific genre of horror that was never made for women or people of color. It is a story that teaches young women how to respond to unwanted sexual advances with decisive force and to microaggressions with sly derision.  If you can look past all of the disgusting horror, it is a perfectly indulgent read, which is bound to teach you a lot and to remain in your memory as a great story.