“Now she recalled one particular thing Jung wrote: everyone carries a shadow. And like a shadow the woman’s words hung over Noemi as she drove back to High Place” (70).

Just like a David Lynch production is not my usual film, this book is not my usual read. And just like watching Blue Velvet for the first time, I loved Mexican Gothic so much. This atmospheric thriller was as smooth as green velvet because of its dark whimsy—full of fables and fairytales—yet it was layered with such weight, the seriousness of gender, eugenics, race, and colonization. And the characters are just as layered as the thick atmosphere. While Noemi appears, at first, to be just a flighty socialite and Catalina appears, at first, to be just a hysterical woman, it doesn’t take long to see that these woman are not to be discredited; rather, they are forces to be reckoned with, and it’s through their will, insight, and intellect that ultimately frees themselves.

The first half of the novel could be called slow, but I think the pace is perfection—a perfect painting revealed: one of personified castles shrouded in bilious-green fog and smothering velvet green rooms. Mildew rotting the inside and moss suffocating the outside and everywhere—inside and outside, awake and asleep—is the melancholy, most notably in frail Francis. This moorish Gothic setting is heightened through the isolation and Lovecraftian characters who live at High Place: Virgil and Arthur and Florence and the weird family doctor. But it’s in the second half of the novel that these characters move from annoying to nefarious. It’s also in this second half where the pace picks up quite a bit and the pieces come together in quite a weird way—a Lynch-Lovecraft way.

What I love most about this book is that this is more than a monster’s tale; it’s about biology and religion and mythology and philosophy all amalgamated together. There’s so much here, such richness, and the ending still manages to feel hopeful despite the absurd arsenic trauma endured (by the characters and the readers): “The future, she thought, could not be predicted, and the shape of things could not be divined…. But they were young that morning, and they could cling to hope. Hope that the world could be remade, kinder and sweeter” (301). ( )

This book is creepy! An atmosphere of decay surrounds High Place... Noemi, a socialite, is sent there to find out why her cousin has written disturbing letters after marrying Virgil and moving there. She discovers that the Doyle's are not your average " dysfunctional" family! ( )

I did not know anything about this book when I began to read it. I did not even bother with browsing the flap because a dear friend gifted it to me and I trust her, always.
I do love gothic fiction. A frantic missive, a gloomy manse where a loved one languishes in bed… bring it on. I remember texting my friend “I'm ready for the mad fire-starting wife to come down from the attic!” The book certainly delivered on the classic atmospheric dread, half-waking nightmare of a plot, leaving you questioning what was happening here?? I love that. I was not expecting what came next but I was good with it. What a satisfyingly creepy tale that I still drift back to from time to time.
If I had one complaint, and it's very small, is that I spent the whole time thinking this isn't very Mexican. Sure, we mentioned a Mexican city, a Mexican family name, but really it could have taken place in any of the English highlands, like it's Gothic sisters. ( )

“Mexican Gothic” is a little slow going for the first part but then quickly descends into a fungi-infested hellscape of Gothic horror that became darkly fun to read! It felt like watching one of those old school black & white horror movies yet more nuanced, more willing to look at not just monster horrors but also the horrors of colonialism, racism, and the gaslighting of women. I think it IS fairly predictable to figure out what’s happening, and some plot points are a little too convenient, but it’s also heavy on the creepy factor so it made a great autumn read. :) ( )

3.5/5
Gothic scenery, sassy main character, and a sinister conundrum she must solve to ensure the care of her dear cousin. Not knowing if her cousin is simply decaying from TB or is slowly losing her mind, she feels she's just not the cousin she grew up loving. Open your eyes...
There may be something wrong with the people in the manor, she must leave and investigate aids for what ails her dear cousin. Open your eyes...
The tincture her dear cousin asked for made her violently ill. She's such a strong willed woman, or is she just a spoiled child. Open your eyes...
Neomi begins to sleepwalk and grow feelings for her cousin's husband?! No! It was a dream, wasn't it? What's going on? As reality shifts and a gloom settles over, things begin to reveal themselves. Open your eyes... ( )