‘Mexican Gothic’: Cool Style and Cold Chills
Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s claustrophobic creep-fest is a treat for those who enjoy a dash of the supernatural in their domestic noir
Could there be a more straightforward title for a Gothic novel set in Mexico? If the title seems too on-the-nose, though, too baldly descriptive, don’t be fooled into thinking the novel might be a paint-by-numbers affair. Moreno-Garcia’s stylish novel is atmospheric, inventive, and a pleasure to read.
Mexican Gothic as Gothic
The past two years have seen four new Moreno-Garcia novels published and two reissued (her 2017 The Beautiful Ones and her 2016 Certain Dark Things), with Mexican Gothic one of two published in 2020 (along with Untamed Shore).
That prolific schedule has seen Moreno-Garcia’s flair for the fantastical—the vampires of Certain Dark Things and the magic of Signal to Noise (2015)—recombined with other genres in delightful new ways. Mexican Gothic brings the mystical and fantastical to the Gothic’s ‘traditional’ concerns around inheritance, heredity, and declining family fortunes.
Mexican Gothic follows stylish and thoughtful university student Noemí Taboada on a family mission to check on the welfare of her newly-wed…
