One of my hot takes on literature is a lot of the old school, Victorian-era, Gothic novels kind of stink. In classic tale Jane Eyre, the love interest’s deep dark secret—and the deep dark secret of his house—is that his first wife is locked up in the attic? And the reveal is that it’s so hard for him?? Silvia Moreno-Garcia literally would never in her contemporary take on this subgenre of classic, Mexican Gothic.

The nature of this review is all spoilers, all the time. 

Mexican Gothic follows Mexico City native Noemi as she travels to the remote manor High Place, inquiring after her cousin Catalina. Catalina had previously sent a letter saying her husband Virgil Doyle was trying to poison her, followed up quickly with tales of “never mind, Catalina is just insane.” But Noemi worries about this insane wife in the attic. She travels to the Doyles’ semi-ancentral manor High Place to investigate, and save her cousin.

POSTCOLONIAL MIMETICS

Mexican Gothic is a remarkably nuanced and effective postcolonial work. High Place is inhabited by the Doyles, a small family of English eugenicists insisting on remaining in their decaying manor long after the silver mine that once funded their family has shut down. The oldest Doyle, Howard, has no problem launching into white supremacist tirades during everyone’s evening nightcap. But don’t worry Noemi—indigenous people’s such as yourself can have a remarkable physical constitution where they might lack cognitive prowess! 

This is my third Moreno-Garcia, and while kyriarchal issues like racism and colorism are typically addressed in her work, I was gobsmacked how effectively she could confront it head on, with completely believable racist temper tantrums covered in faux intellectualism.

Empire, and empire’s inevitable decay, is central to this novel. On the large scale, the Doyles only live in rural Mexico because it was once profitable to exploit, before the darn revolutionaries ruined everything. On the small scale, they are becoming physically ill and incapable of having healthy children because (like all the great imperialists before them) they refuse to taint their bloodline, and insist on interbreeding with all their brothers and sisters and cousins among them.

The manor, too, decays, taken over by the symbiotic mold that powers the Doyle family. Inbreeding is necessitated by requiring heirs genetically compatible with the fungus that gives them power over other humans, controlled by the family patriarch. As the patriarch dies, he uses this fungus to replace the consciousness of a chosen heir with his own, creating a perverted immortality. His outdated ideals about race, sex, work, violence, and empire therefore remain largely unchanged, quite like the English Empire that has birthed and molded him.

In several layers—empire, dynastic family, house, person—Moreno-Garcia exposes the central flaw of imperialism, self-consumption. Indeed, the symbol of the ouroboros decorates High Place inside and out. The empire can take something from the ground, but the ground will run out. The empire can take something from the people, but the people will fight back. When the ground is empty, and the servants are gone, what does the empire (and its parasitic machinery) have left to support itself? One family of Habsburgs rotting in a house full of unused silver.

The novel itself, in its own form, adds to the postcolonial message. In its pacing and structure, it has the classic Gothic shape. It is slow and repeats itself, adding additional meaning and revelation in slivers. The characters and settings are explained again with each of Noemi’s days, reflecting the smallest of changes, or emphasizing the lack of change. In emulating the classic Gothic story, it makes a point of being superior, and of showing the intrigue that a non-European perspective can bring to the genre.

THE REVISED HAUNTING OF ANY PLACE

Mexican Gothic also has an interesting position in historical revisions of the classic haunted house. We know the world once seemed more haunted than it does now, and the skeptics have plenty of explanation for it. Old manors weren’t made up to code as we understand it, and a lot of spiritual visions and madness can be attributed to construction flaws like low-grade carbon monoxide poisoning and bad wiring.

It doesn’t help, either, that anyone complaining of hallucinations, feelings of dread, and related maladies was likely to be prescribed treatments like opium and confinement, where they would be imprisoned in the places that were poisoning them and given more hallucinogenic compounds to calm them down.

The role of mold in Mexican Gothic is alluded to in some of the earliest descriptions of the manor. This damp, horrid building with non-openable windows has probably never once been completely dry, and the walls with their mold murals show it. 

Black mold infestations are historically likely as a source of “hauntings,” and I imagine many Victorians with completely addled fungus brain saw spirits, felt cold with fever, and generally lost physical and mental feelings of well-being. The reader in Mexican Gothic can figure out pretty quickly the source of haunting here is mold, and the power of the reveal is in what kind.

The book takes us full circle, from the supernatural spirit, to the natural mold, to the mold itself being supernatural, an almost magic borne from ritual—a magic that is taken quite literally. The book does not take us into my least favorite pet peeve, playing Is It Real? Is it hallucination? Is everyone just making it up in their heads? The book commits to magic mold.

SURPRISINGLY NON-TOXIC

This is my third Moreno-Garcia, and I have to say, usually I read her romantic subplots while half-covering my eyes. As is typical with genre fiction, these relationships usually have a thread of toxicity, which has stopped appealing to me in my 30’s.

Francis is not a flawless love interest. He has seriously cowardly bouts. He lets his grandfather spit mind-controlling mold juice into Noemi’s mouth. He never really communicates the danger she’s in or encourages early opportunities for escape. One of my favorite tensions in the mid-story was wondering if he was going to Get Out her, pretending to fetch the car keys while secretly being party to her abduction the whole time.

But honestly, I can (barely) forgive him and let him and Noemi be happy together by the end. Anyone who would kill his own mother in a game of lover-or-terrible-mother can be excused for one instance of mold-in-the-mouth.