Noemi Taboada, the heroine of Silvia Moreno-Garcia ’s novel, “Mexican Gothic" lives for pleasure, and in 1950s Mexico City, she can find plenty of it. She manages a whirl of cigarette smoke and cocktails, as vibrant and brittle as a butterfly, without scandalizing herself or her social class. Yet she aspires to more ; though Noemi's father dismisses her academic passions, she’s finished an undergraduate degree in anthropology. Her plans to begin graduate school are diverted by a call from an uncle. Her cousin Catalina, married to an Englishman named Virgil Doyle whose family owned a large strip mine, now lives in a country manor known as High Place that may also be her prison ; among Catalina’s melodramatic-sounding claims is that it “stinks of decay, brims with every single evil and cruel sentiment.” Noemí is sent to find out if her cousin is ill or in danger. All the gothic tropes promised in the winking title are in place : The sacrificial virgin ; the damsel in distress ; the cruel, unyielding husband ; the spooky, distant locale ; even a Mrs. Danvers - esque chatelaine named Florence, Virgil’s sister. Let’s not forget her son, seemingly spineless Francis, and the aged, rotting, domineering paterfamilias, Howard Doyle, whose sway over the household is inexplicable — at first. But Moreno-Garcia isn’t just rattling off genre signifiers. The author’s postcolonial spin on the gothic tradition evokes the usual suspects : Daphne du Maurier, Emily Bronte, Mary Shelley, even Anne Radcliffe. Like those authors, Moreno-Garcia works in a tradition in which chills and thrills tap into elemental cultural fears — runaway science, carnal passion. But to these she adds a more politically inflected horror, both ancient and timely : A racist will to power. #mexicangothic #mexicangothicbook #mexicangothiclady #mexicangothicmusic #mexicangothicmetal #bookstagram #booklover #bookmarks #bookmarks #bookstagrammer #booknerd #bookshelf #readersofinstagram #readersgonnaread #readersofig #readerscommunity https://www.instagram.com/p/CFwgJfaJpHw/?igshid=osvurrbtjruj
