“Mexican Gothic” - Silvia Moreno-Garcia

 🍄 Horror novels are not my genre of choice. But this one is gothic horror so I decided to give it a shot. It reads like a monstrous combination of “Rebecca,” “Wuthering Heights,” “Jane Eyre,” and “A Picture of Dorian Gray” with elements of Quiroga’s writing throughout. Before you proceed on my recommendation be warned that this is not a book for the squeamish; the word “pustule” is invoked often and to nauseating effect.

🍄 Noemí Taboada is a vibrant young woman of a wealthy, cosmopolitan family from Mexico City. If she resided in the UK, she would certainly have been a leading member of the Bright Young Things. Her father receives a troubling missive from Noemí’s cousin Catalina. He sends Noemí on a fact-finding mission to determine if all is well with Catalina.

🍄 The setting is everything in this novel. Catalina resides with her husband Virigl Doyle and his extended family deep in El Triunfo forest, at a residence known as The High Place. The gloom and mists of El Triunfo are like a Central American moor; you almost expect Heathcliff to stride by at any moment. Noemí makes the same literary connections. 

The oh-so-English Doyle family has constructed a replica Victoria-era home deep within El Triunfo, high on a hilltop, isolated and designed to keep the natives away. For such a classist, racist bunch, we are puzzled by why they remain in their now dilapidated home, surrounded by decaying English finery. None of the Doyles speak Spanish or attempt to assimilate in the local culture. They fight endless, losing battles to tame the land to suit English sensibilities.

🍄 Old Uncle Howard is the ailing patriarch who runs High Place with a creepy, all-knowing and all-seeing air, and a robust eugenics mania to boot. Why did he sanction his nephew’s marriage to Catalina, an aristocrat but of decidedly not English descent. We wonder.

🍄 Noemí is given a chilly welcome by Florence, Howard’s niece (and Francis’ mother). You get immediate Mrs. Danvers vibes when the 2nd Mrs. de Winter arrived at Manderley.  

“To be a Doyle is to be someone.” Florence says haughtily to Noemí; but the reality is they are a bunch of nobodies locked away in a dilapidated mansion in the middle of nowhere.

🍄 This novel reads like a crazy fever dream. The house is a definitely a character unto itself. The High Place is a supernatural house that appears to gaslight Noemíe (“you harmed her”, “it’s tuberculosis”).  Alongside Noemíe, I was constantly asking myself what on earth is happening? Is it poison? It the house or its inhabitants trying to kill Catalina or drive her to insanity. Why?!?! 

There are ghosts, dreams, and hallucinations at work. Our perceptions of reality loosen the moment Noemíe crosses the threshold of High Place. MG is twisted, infinitely grotesque, disturbing, and impossible to put down.

🍄 I loved the slow build-up of suspense, uncertainty, and horror. When all is finally revealed, fantastic though it is, it’s a big leap that reader is only just barely ready to make.