22 year old Noemí Taboada lives a glamorous, debutante life in 1950s Mexico City, with big plans to study Anthropology at University, and a long list of suitors vying for her attention.
When a desperate and non-sensical letter arrives from her cousin Catalina, Noemí is concerned, and immediately heads to High Place, the remote mountain home of her dear cousin's mysterious new English husband to try to check in on Catalina.
The Doyles welcome Noemí to High Place, but these once silver mining colonial magnates, are now now faded, sinister relics, in an equally rundown mansion. Virgil is charming menacing, his father is obsessed with eugenics and uncomfortably fascinated by Noemí, and his aunt is an authoritarian who can't stand rebellious rule breakers. Her only ally is Francis, Virgil's shy young cousin - but even he may be hiding the family's dark secrets. The longer Noemí stays at High Place, the more the house and its sinister occupants haunt her, and invade her dreams with terrifying visions. Are Catalina's ravings of voices in the walls and being held prisoner truly the product of a fevered mind or something far more ominous? Will Noemí be able to uncover the horrible past of High Place, or will she be trapped there forever, unable to leave at all...?
This book has been on my list for absolutely ages, and I had high hopes, and boy did it deliver! I adore modern takes on gothic and eldritch horror (think Crimson Peak and Lovecraft Country), so I was very excited about this and honestly it lived up to all my expectations. I demolished this book in about two days, and considering my reading time is often limited in the summer, that should give you an idea of how enthralled I was.
I would definitely class this as a gothic horror, the atmosphere is creeping and pervasive, and though it never really has a full on scare, it definitely creeped me out, made me shudder in places and builds nicely to a big, dramatic ending. I mentioned Crimson Peak earlier, and this gave me similar vibes for sure. I know that a lot of people were disappointed with Crimson Peak, as they went into it expecting a fully fledged horror rather than something more Gothic, so this may be the same for some. gothic horror is all about questioning reality and sanity, and bleak, atmospheric settings, and not so much the modern horror staples of jump scares and increasingly shocking imagery, but that's a discussion for a different time.
Our heroine, Noemí is certainly who you'd expect to save the day - at first glance she appears to be a spoiled socialite, but she quickly shows herself and strong-willed, smart and brave. As much as she enjoys parties and high society, she's also keen to pursue a Masters degree, and has no qualms about potentially rescuing her cousin. Moreno-Garcia does an excellent job of subverting the damsel in distress trope and giving us a woman of colour heroine fighting against the racism and sexism so often seen in the classics of the genre.
For all the trope subversion going on with the main character, Mexican Gothic still plays into the genre well - High Place is every inch a gothic mansion - a decaying relic of former glory, complete with no electricity, corridors full of portraits of foreboding ancestors, and mouldering furnishings. Moreno-Garcia does an excellent job of crafting the image of the house, and it's equally creepy occupants, and maintaining an incredibly rich, cinematic atmosphere throughout. The house is a key character in itself, and as it began to invade Noemí's dreams and cause her to question her perception of reality, I really felt swept along with her isolation and feeling of entrapment.
The book also tackles some important themes, and there is clear commentary on the power that Europeans hold even in a seemingly post-colonial world, and the exploitation of People of Colour by white imperialists. Honestly the parts that I found the most disturbing were the conversations that patriarch Howard Doyle has with Noemí about eugenics and "aesthetic tastes", it made my skin crawl, and I was very glad to see the heroine holding her own against the racist old cockroach. I really like this perspective, romanticising imperialism is tired, and I certainly came away having learnt a lot about mid century Mexico and its culture.
One place that many horrors fall down in is the ending - horror endings are hard to do well, and I'm often disappointed by the explanations or final acts of otherwise brilliant books. Moreno-Garcia doesn't fall into this trap at all - the truth behind the horrors of High Place are teased out gradually, and are written with a great deal of skill, so I wasn't able to guess the twist until it was revealed which is always fun. All in all, this is a fantastic book, and I really recommend anyone who enjoys horror or historical fiction check it out.
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