Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Original Instagram post: March 30, 2021

I don’t read a lot of horror — I know it's a wide and varied genre, so I promised myself that I wouldn’t go in with expectations or assumptions. Was this book eerie as hell? Yup. Did it make me cringe and squirm? Yup. Was I unable to put it down after a certain point? You bet..

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Noemí Taboada — our heroine — is smart, resourceful, coy, and determined by turns. She arrives at High Place, a lonely English mansion in the Mexican countryside, seeking her recently married cousin. Catalina secreted a letter to Noemí, asking for rescue. When she arrives she find her cousin unsettlingly changed. And the residents of High Place unsettlingly indifferent.

Howard Doyle, patriarch of the house, wins the creepy award. In close second, his son (and Catalina’s husband), Virgil. They both wield their positions as white men in Mexico (in the 1950s) with ease. Howard talks constantly of eugenics, of which race has the stronger blood. All the while oogling Noemí. (This guy is ancient, btw.) Virgil’s not much better. The way they talk about superiority of blood made me nauseous. I just wanted Noemí to run. SHE wanted to run. I didn’t want to watch as she was ensnared in the Doyle’s web, but I felt as unable to look away as she was unable to leave. (CW: there is a fair amount of gaslighting in this book.)

The house itself is a character in this book, as I think houses are in gothic novels. Wuthering Heights, Thornfield Hall, High Place. The secrets that hide in the walls… the attics that drive someone mad…

Though there are elements of Lovecraft in this book, I honestly found the human elements of this book to be the most horrifying. What people are capable of doing, of ignoring, for the sake of power.

Did I have any idea what I was getting into with this book? Nope. Did I thoroughly enjoy it? Absolutely.

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