[Book Review] Mexican Gothic (2020)

I’m a feminist, and I love well-written horror. It’s rare that I find a book that delivers on plot and prose and caters to my killjoy feminist agenda, but I can now add Mexican Gothic to that list. I was hoping for a sensationalist, supernatural mystery with a big, evil dose of murderous intent and that’s exactly what I got.

And hello, all my favourite horror motifs festooning the genre since Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho! Moreno-Garcia gives us the horrific, nastily pulsating nature-as-enemy threat à la Day of the Triffids, nightmarish dreams stalking the line between the subconscious and reality, and a lingering presence of oppression threatening the asylum. She gifts us a ‘gothic, gargoyle house’ suffocating its residents with mould, and a lecherous, nefarious father and son with a sinister family history. But most importantly we’re also given a relatable, courageous heroine who is beautiful, but also intelligent, brave and believable.

Noemí is a party girl with depth (as if, as the book points out, you can’t be both) sent by her father to investigate strange letters from her recently married cousin Catalina. If she does this successfully she will be allowed to pursue her university degree. This bargain emphasises how Noemí has some privilege, being from a rich and powerful family, whilst also reminding the reader she is still essentially under her father’s influence. She journeys to High Place; a strange, oppressive residence with  unwelcoming, secretive inhabitants. But this won’t be the usual case of supposed female hysteria, to be cured with an extra dose of rest and wifely obedience. Catalina seems eerily docile and confused but we know that by contriving a clever way to send for help without alerting her oppressors, she wasn’t always a broken and compliant wife. There is clearly something very wrong but the family is reluctant to indulge Noemí’s plea for a second medical opinion. 

Abused wives have always been a part of High Place and their tragic fates haunt its history. Catalina and Noemí were close until Catalina’s hasty marriage to Virgil. Becoming his wife meant surrendering herself and she is the latest in a long line of Doyle women to do so. Noemí is desperate to restore her, but immediately has a problem. Her cousin’s creepy husband is free to make decisions on Catalina’s behalf, making it difficult for Noemí to intercede - at one point she wishes her father was there because, as a man, he would have more influence. But Noemí has an iron will. She is a dark-skinned Mexican woman, well-educated and from a wealthy family, (Moreno-Garcia ascertains in an interview that ‘Mexican and Latin American characters are often shown as people who are suffering, uneducated immigrants’) so she stands out from the crowd of porcelain-pale, dreamily romantic and fragile Gothic heroines. She doubts herself sometimes (don’t most women?) but has enough confidence to repel attempts from others to seduce, confuse and control her. Over the course of the novel, marriage is used to try to force her to submit, but she won’t easily become another link in the sad chain of victims.

As Noemí struggles to help her cousin from within in a system designed to limit her power, she exercises her rebellious nature despite being underestimated and discriminated against for both her gender, race and beauty. The Doyles think nothing of Mexico and its people, making every effort to live in an environment as English as possible. They brought white English staff over to work in the house, and even imported English soil. They exploited the local workers labouring in the silver mine, which was the source of the family’s wealth before it had to be shut down, insisting on hard work and low pay. Many workers became sick and died, with only the English being given proper burial whilst the Mexicans were thrown into mass graves. There is a sickening assumption of superiority from  Howard Doyle (the withered but scheming head of the family) who goads Noemí with his talk of eugenics and wants to restore the family to its former exploitative glory. Eventually a horrifying explanation for their current, destitute situation is forced into the light.

There is a strong evocation to Charlotte Perkins-Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, in which the protagonist gradually defies her stifling male oppressors, with patterns on the wallpaper moving and a mysterious golden woman. It’s a literary nod within the novel which seems to tie in with the female Gothic novel historically being used as an outlet for women writers to give voice to their experienced injustices. Something that really struck home for me were the lines ‘She thought that men such as her father could be stern and men could be cold like Virgil, but women needed to be liked or they’d be in trouble. A woman who is not liked is a bitch, and a bitch can hardly do anything: all avenues are closed to her.’ This is an assertion which remains true for women despite how far we might have come since the fifties. Through Noemí though, Moreno-Garcia doesn’t smash the patriarchy so much as burn it to the ground.

I thought this novel was a consistently clever read. I’m often disappointed by books in this genre with bold beginnings that become ridiculous or laughable. Mexican Gothic has none of these pitfalls. The ending was satisfying and the writing was solid. I cared about Noemí and relished her role as rescuer, and although the other characters were not as well-rounded, they were convincing enough to maintain its momentum. For me, this was traditionally melodramatic writing at its best. It rivals Northangar Abbey by Jane Austen in its self-awareness and rejection of a traditional Gothic heroine, but it is original in its proud Mexican setting, its plot and the way it repeatedly and joyfully stabs its figurative blade into the diseased and decaying flesh of discrimination. Moreno-Garcia was discouraged from setting her book in Mexico as it would be unlikely to become a best-seller as a result. Perhaps, by ignoring this advice, she was mirroring her main character’s rebellious spirit? Either way, I found myself thoroughly entertained by it.

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