Chloe McDermott

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is gothic horror set in Mexico in the 50’s.  The plot follows Noemi Taboada, a fiery and flighty socialite who receives a frantic and mysterious letter from her newlywed cousin. Upon arrival at the new residence of her cousin and her husband she is met with much resistance from him and the other members of his family. She unravels a much greater mystery behind this house and the family that resides here.

I have read another book by Moreno-Garcia, Gods of Jade and Shadow. I found her writing incredibly atmospheric and this novel turns that skill up to eleven. From the start when we first meet our main character, when we first arrive at high place and when we first enter the ‘gloom’. She drags us fully into this horrifying world.

She captures a slow burn creepy atmosphere like a fog thickening slowly through the day. The reader get’s the correct impression that there is something off with the Doyle family – the one her cousin married into. As Noemi, attempts to help her cousin find the help she needs and correctly assess the situation she starts to put more puzzle pieces together.

Admittedly, I found the first half of the book slow going as it seems to me that on occasionally Noemi gets distracted from her main objective. However, reading on, it clicked as to why this may have been the case. There was something in the very air she breathed at high place that made her act different. In other words, it may be a slow start, but it is certainly worth sticking with as she really picks up the pace in the last third. At this point in the story, I was eager to continue.

Characterisation is handled beautifully, and each character stands to fulfill an almost perverse extreme of their familial role. Noemi being an outsider to the family of different cultural background is often placed in stark contrast to the Doyles. This is often achieved by the writer empathising  her forward thinking, flighty and fiery nature meeting their cold, restrained and conservative mindset. The writer often plays with these differences to build tension throughout the story.

Throughout the story the writer makes several references to eugenics, incest, mythological symbolism and colonisation. For example, she references the Hapsburg jaw when describing the Doyles on many occasions. Frued, fairytales and the snake eating its own tail come up again and again too.

These references often link to the text’s themes. One that permeates the entire text is, exploitation depicted as rot. There are many references to Mold, fungi, corpses etc throughout the novel. The novel often ties these to the Doyles and their story of colonisation. They function like a metaphor for a fungus taking over a local population, responsible for their deaths, once responsible for the towns prosperity but now it is poor and a shadow of it’s self and sitting on the doomed town until they rot away.

Not only is this theme of exploitation tied to rot with regards the town and its people but even the female members of the family. Often in the plot it becomes clear that misogyny is often depicted as a rot of its own kind. Often the female members are subject to violence, incest, sexual violence, treated as hosts for the baby then even their corpses desecrated to continue to benefit the life of the patriarch.

Horror often explores themes by using the paranormal, gore etc as a metaphorical mirror to the world. In this way, Mexican gothic uses the medium of horror to depict the often bleak and dehumanising effects of colonisation. The writer plays with this theme throughout and uses it to tell a delightfully creepy tale that will slowly grip you and drag you down and haunt you.