This eerie novel had me staying up way past my bedtime most nights. The night I finished it, I looked up and it was nearly four o'clock in the morning! Mexican Gothic is one of those books that will have readers saying, "One more chapter," multiple times per day because it is intense. Between Noemi's vivid nightmares and her grim reality, readers keep pushing on hoping for an explanation on the next page.
Bibliophiles will enjoy the suspense and the thrill of the unknown, along with the writer's descriptions of the setting. The mansion, High Place, sits atop a steep hill above the small town of Triunfo in Mexico. The house, the town, and even the hill itself are described in such rich detail that a reader can smell the putrid stench of wicked things that go bump in the night. With great ease one can visualize the fine details portrayed in the author's oeuvre.
I applaud Silvia Moreno-Garcia for the extensive research she did in order to bring her book to life in the 1950s. The vocabulary alone takes the reader back to a time when women were not the heroes of fairytales. Noemi changes that narrative with her stubborn, yet classy heroism, and her strong will.
Audiences will be talking about this novel for years to come. Its originality and fantastical grotesqueness is a welcome retreat from reality for diehard fans of the horror genre.
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