RERELEASE: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Episode 248
Release Date: November 11, 2026
Lilly read Mexican Gothic and makes it Sara's problem. She english-major-splains gothic lit, but spares you the horror of listening to someone recap their dreams.
Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:
- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”
- Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
Episode Transcript*
*this transcript is generated by Descript, please excuse the mess.
Lilly 0:03
Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily,
Sara 0:10
and I'm Sarah, and today we're re-releasing an episode that we recorded when we first started the podcast.
Lilly 0:16
so we won't be doing our quick five minute intro this time.
Sara 0:20
During the first year of the podcast, we combined two book conversations into each episode along with some related segments like Pet Peeve Corner, and words are weird.
Lilly 0:30
We decided to republish those conversations as separate episodes to give those books a better chance to shine.
Sara 0:36
These have been slightly remastered, but you can still enjoy our Peak 2021 Microphone Technology.
Lilly 0:43
If you want to listen to the original double feature, these are episodes two through 23 in our podcast feed.
Sara 0:49
And as always, come disagree with us. So Lily, you read a book for this episode of the podcast that, again, I did not read.
Lilly 0:59
Did I ever. This was Well, Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia was one of the first books I put on our list purely so that I would have an excuse to read it.
Sara 1:14
You're welcome
Lilly 1:15
Yes, thank you very much. I think I saw it first in a Twitter ad, actually, and the description of it just, uh You ever find something and go, "Oh, Moreno-Garcia wrote this book for me. How nice of her."
Sara 1:31
When you were telling me about it, I was like, "Oh, yes, this is a Lily book. This is definitely a Lily book"
Lilly 1:38
It is, and well, as the title suggests, it is a gothic novel, and it really hits all of those tropes so well. I don't know, Sarah, how much gothic literature you've read, but it's very location heavy. There's often a lot of moors. You gotta have some good fog in there. There's almost always some kind of castle or manor that must be in terrible condition. You can't have, like, a clean, well-operated house in a gothic novel. There's all this imagery of just destruction and decay and the sort of trudge of time. It, it's a very atmospheric genre.
Sara 2:23
Mm-hmm
Lilly 2:23
So the main character is usually brought into this setting, often from a romantic entanglement. I- you think of, you know, Jane Eyre, she marries what's-his-face. I should probably remember
Sara 2:38
She marries someone
Lilly 2:40
You know, a young woman marries a guy after knowing him for not long enough and then goes, "Oh no, what have I gotten myself into?" That's basically every Gothic novel. N- not actually. Like The Fall of the House of Usher, which is one of the, the big ones by Poe, it's an old college buddy who get, who decides to visit his friend and then is, you know, stumbling across the moors going, "Oh no, what have I gotten myself into?" There's always that sort of dreaded realization in there at some point.
Sara 3:12
Mm-hmm
Lilly 3:14
And there's often a lot of motifs of illness, uh, either f- you know, the main character catches ill or there's a, a family member who's ill. There's this illness and decay and gloominess. It's Anyway, this is the genre, and it is all done, I mean, it is all absolutely in this book. It has the added sort of extra dimension in that it does take place in Mexico in the 1950s, which is not a typical setting for a Gothic novel. But I, I think that really added some it's weird to say freshness after I just described how dusty and gloomy everything about Gothic literature is. But it definitely added an element that you don't normally get.
Sara 4:05
Mm-hmm
Lilly 4:05
And so the main character is Mexican, but the family, the, you know, the spooky house family, which there, there's always a spooky house family, uh, they are British. So you still got that, that good old cr- creepy old Brit element to it.
Sara 4:24
It wouldn't be a Gothic novel without it
Lilly 4:26
Really wouldn't. Um, but then in this book, instead of the main character getting married, it's actually her cousin who did, and her cousin s- sends some very distressing letters back to the family.
Sara 4:44
Mm-hmm
Lilly 4:44
so Noemi, the main character, is sort of sent to find out what the heck is going on
Sara 4:50
Mm-hmm. So does the cousin marry, um, into the creepy British family?
Lilly 4:56
Of course, someone has to.
Sara 4:58
She's taking one for the team
Lilly 5:00
Yeah. Well, they're always swept away at the beginning. We don't actually see that in this book because, again,
Sara 5:06
Right
Lilly 5:06
Catalina is the, is the one who marries this, into the spooky British family, and that has happened before the beginning of the
Sara 5:15
Right. Mm-hmm
Lilly 5:16
which is part of why this book didn't feel tired.
Sara 5:21
Mm-hmm
Lilly 5:21
You know, this w- this wasn't just, okay, you just changed Jane Eyre's name and set this in Mexico. You know, it wasn't like that at all. This was actually, like, its own story. But as a fan of Gothic literature, it was so much, so much fun. I, I love that stuff. It's great. Give me some spookiness, give me some mystery. Ooh, the mystery. Ooh, that's all gonna be after the spoiler break because, I mean, obviously I'm not gonna tell you the mystery
Sara 5:50
I wasn't even aware that there was a mystery in this
Lilly 5:54
So that's actually Yeah, it, the, there's the spooky British house, and the question is always, what the heck is going on here?
Sara 6:01
Mm-hmm.
Lilly 6:02
And the answer is always different, which is something I like about Gothic literature. You never know if it's going to be, if it's going to have a rational explanation or if, "Oh, yeah, surprise, undead are real." Like, in Gothic lit it could go either way.
Sara 6:18
Aw.
Lilly 6:19
Uh, but there's always that threat of the supernatural.
Sara 6:22
Mm-hmm
Lilly 6:23
But that's part of what I like about the genre. You know, if you're reading a fantasy novel and it starts in New York City, you're like, "Gosh, I bet something magical is going to happen."
Sara 6:35
I think that's probably why I'm not attracted to Gothic literature as a genre, 'cause, like, if there's the threat of something supern- I just want the supernatural
Lilly 6:40
Ah. No, I love that reading books like this, you really don't know which way it's gonna go.
Sara 6:46
Mm-hmm.
Lilly 6:47
And that journey to me is like, you know, obviously as the reader, I'm trying to f- figure it out. I'm trying to sleuth through it with the main character. You're there with her, and trying to go like, "Ooh, is she, you know, is she reading the situation right? Do I, do I think she's onto something?" Or, you know,
Sara 7:08
Mm-hmm
Lilly 7:08
I also like mysteries, so
Sara 7:10
I mean, I enjoy mysteries, but I, I want there to be a clean or a clear delineation between is there going to be magic or is there not going to be magic. Because if, if there's, if magic is hinted at as a possibility, then I'll be disappointed when it doesn't show up. But that's a personal thing
Lilly 7:31
Yeah, I get that. I just, I would probably be annoyed if every book was like that, but sometimes it's really, it's so compelling to go into something and truly not knowing how it's gonna end. It's not like a superhero movie where you're like, "You know, for some reason I think the good guys are gonna win."
Sara 7:52
Yeah.
Lilly 7:53
I'm actually really invested in what's happening, and oh man, the mystery in this book. I had to put it down when I was about almost exactly halfway through just because, you know, I have a life unfortunately, and I actually had a nightmare about it. Not, it wasn't exactly a nightmare, but there are spooky dreams in this book. The main character starts having scary dreams, and when I woke up, I was like, "Was I reading too late? Was that the book, or was that my dream?" Like, I could not remember right away, which was a very fun experience. At least, I mean I had a good time. But just, like it really got into my head
Sara 8:40
I feel, I feel like that's a mark of a good book, though, is when you have dreams that are connected to it. I, not necessarily, I don't necessarily wanna say it's great when your books give you nightmares
Lilly 8:52
So anyway, Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. If you like gothic novels at all, if you like mysteries at all, read this book. Stop listening right now. Go read it This episode of Fiction Fans is brought to you by sia.
Sara 9:13
That's our zine. Each issue has a different theme that celebrates genre and genre blending in a new way.
Lilly 9:20
PDF, and Epub Versions can be purchased on our website and Patreon, supporters of all levels get free digital copies.
Sara 9:28
You can find all the issues and more at patreon.com/fiction fans pod. Thank you for all of your support.
Lilly 9:36
The remainder of this episode contains spoilers. Okay, so I mentioned how it's unclear whether the house is spooky for supernatural reasons or for regular reasons,
Sara 9:51
Mm-hmm
Lilly 9:52
and I think this book did that in such a cool way.
Sara 9:58
How so?
Lilly 9:59
The old dilapidated manor has mold growing everywhere, you know, because it's old and dilapidated, and there's fog, and, you know, it's falling apart.
Sara 10:09
Mm-hmm.
Lilly 10:11
And at one point, Na- not Naomi, Noemi has the theory that maybe we're all getting sick from this mold, and that's why we're all experiencing these strange things. And by we all, she means herself and her cousin, for the most part. And then it turns out it is the mold, but that's because the mold has been grabbing the consciousnesses of, of all the wives that have died there.
Sara 10:41
Oh my
Lilly 10:42
so the ghosts are real. They're in the, the mushroom colony. Oh, mushrooms, Sarah. I think most of my notes for this book were just mushrooms in all caps.
Sara 10:52
I mean, I'm, I'm looking at our, uh, show notes and yes, there are some notes that just say mushrooms.
Lilly 10:59
It's so cool though because, you know, a mushroom circle are all actually just one organism that are connected by, by filaments underneath the ground. And the supernatural aspect of this book is that the patriarch discovered a mushroom that if you ate would sort of help It would transfer the memories of the person it grew on. So if you passed away and these mushrooms grew on you and then someone ate them, they would get some of your memories.
Sara 11:30
Interesting
Lilly 11:31
And so he, of course, is an evil bad guy and warped that. He would murder his wives and also occasionally infant children, and then, you know, there's some cannibalism and mushroom growing, and basically grew mushrooms on their bodies and created a network of mushrooms throughout this house so that anyone who died there, and you know, their body became part of the mushroom network, their consciousness became part of it. So the ghosts were real. It wasn't You know, they were being driven crazy by the mushrooms, but it was also magic at the same time. And that was just, oh, so good, but especially because of that reveal, and that is such a logical explanation. You know, just the, the sickness basically, the crazy-making mold, which I think is a thing
Sara 12:25
Yeah, I mean, certainly mold making you sick is a thing. I don't know if it makes you crazy, but
Lilly 12:31
Uh, isn't that one of the theories of the witch trials, was that everyone was eating moldy bread and it made them go crazy,
Sara 12:37
do not recall
Lilly 12:38
uh, or have hallucinations? I think that's been dismissed, but there, I think there is mold that can cause you to hallucinate. Anyway, it was a solid enough theory that y- like I said, I honestly did not know
Sara 12:53
Mm-hmm
Lilly 12:54
if that was true or not reading this
Sara 12:56
Yeah, I mean it, it, it sounds quite logical
Lilly 12:58
Yeah, so Catalina and Noemi are seeing these ghosts and they, uh, they're like, "Oh, God, I'm going crazy." Like, why- um, is it just the isolation? Like, why am I losing my sanity? And then it turns out, no, it's all real. That, yeah. Ugh, the mushrooms. I think mushrooms are really cool
Sara 13:18
Mushrooms are really cool
Lilly 13:20
And that's also an aspect of I didn't wanna get into it in the opening part because I felt like it would lead a little bit. No, I guess I kinda got into it anyway. But another trope of Gothic literature is science versus mysticism,
Sara 13:37
Mm-hmm
Lilly 13:37
which comes out a lot in, like, is this house haunted or is there just an insane woman locked in the attic kinda thing.
Sara 13:46
Yeah
Lilly 13:46
Uh, which is the plot of more than one Gothic novel. And so that's, that's Jane Eyre, and then in The Fall of the House of Usher, they buried someone before she was actually dead, and so all of, all of the banging is her trying to get out of the tomb.
Sara 14:04
Oh, that's terrifying.
Lilly 14:05
It is terrifying.
Sara 14:07
That is, ooh. Ugh
Lilly 14:09
But truly horrifying. Yeah, they're just scare I, I like, I like my books spooky sometimes
Sara 14:14
I mean, it, I'm also not much of a horror person, so
Lilly 14:17
Uh, horror is right horror. So in Mexican Gothic, there is just about every flavor of horror you can imagine. You know, there's the light, almost romantic horror of the spooky house, the spooky British house, which they describe as looking like it could have come from a Gothic novel more than once, which is too many times. The book is already called Mexican Gothic. Like, I get it, okay? So there's that, and then there's, of course, the sort of run-of-the-mill haunting horror, which is boring to me. Not, maybe not boring to me,
Sara 15:01
Commonplace
Lilly 15:02
not my favorite kind of horror. Yay, there's ghosts. All
Sara 15:05
Yeah
Lilly 15:06
But then there's some, like, truly awful body horror because the patriarch has been using his mushroom network to transfer his consciousness into his children,
Sara 15:20
Oh.
Lilly 15:21
so he's basically living forever, right? 'Cause everyone connected to the mushrooms are also connect- like, mentally. They, if you're infected by the spores, you are connected to this It's bas- it's one organism. It's, it's a mushroom network.
Sara 15:33
Yeah
Lilly 15:34
And so by raising his children in this house, they're all so infected that when he dies he can just take, possess them, basically.
Sara 15:44
Oh
Lilly 15:44
And but we see him right at the very end of his life, and he, like, he has mushrooms growing out of him and boils, and he's just, he's a monster. He's a mushroom monster So there's just some, like, truly unsettling body horror there.
Sara 16:00
Mm-hmm.
Lilly 16:01
But then on the other end of the spectrum, we also get what I would consider more of a psychological horror, where when you're infected with these spores, they can influence you, they being the spooky British family.
Sara 16:16
Right
Lilly 16:18
So the main character is sexually assaulted by one of the other characters multiple times.
Sara 16:27
Mm-hmm
Lilly 16:28
She thinks they're just nightmares for a while, and then finds out maybe they were He was You know, if he was doing it on purpose, then that still counts.
Sara 16:36
Mm-hmm.
Lilly 16:37
But what makes it so extra horrifying is because the spores are exerting influence over her mind, she's into it while it's happening. It's only afterwards she realizes what, like, those weren't her thoughts, basically. So it's just that sort of extra cerebral not only being out of control of your actions, but being out of control of your own emotions
Sara 17:04
Mm-hmm
Lilly 17:05
is, like, it's, it's magical mushroom roofies. Like, that is just such a ugh.
Sara 17:11
Unpleasant, yeah
Lilly 17:12
extremely unpleasant. So it, it really hits, like whatever type of horror you like, it'll hit that.
Sara 17:21
Mm-hmm.
Lilly 17:22
There's also, like I mentioned, cannibalism, uh, because they're eating the bodies of people infected by mushrooms to, like, keep the mushroom thing going.
Sara 17:33
To be extra mushroomy
Lilly 17:34
It- that's basically exactly, yes, to be extra mushroomy.
Sara 17:37
Yes.
Lilly 17:38
Uh, and then also, this was one I definitely didn't mention up top because it's kind of a, it's kind of a reveal when it happens in the book, when you find out in the book. But not everyone can be absorbed into the mushroom network, not physically abs- you know, mentally. Not everyone is compatible is what they say. And so to make sure he always has a compatible host, it, the patriarch is just super incesty.
Sara 18:07
Oh
Lilly 18:08
He has a son and a daughter, and then he possesses the son, and then uses the daughter to make more children,
Sara 18:13
Mm-hmm
Lilly 18:14
and the ba- this basically has been going on for hundreds of years
Sara 18:18
So is compatibility like a genetic thing?
Lilly 18:21
Well, that's how it's explained. It's not confirmed though, because he's also, like, a psychotic eugenics guy,
Sara 18:30
Ah.
Lilly 18:30
and so maybe he's just nutso.
Sara 18:34
Yeah, it, it sounds like, yeah
Lilly 18:36
Because that, that was his excuse basically for grooming his entire family for f- 500 years or however long it's been. But then they coerce these two young Mexican women to come to their manor and, oh, guess what? They just happen to also be super compatible. What, like, wow, what a coincidence. Or maybe that's not a thing and you're just a creepy psycho Cause they, they try to say, "Wow, you know, we wouldn't think someone of, of your stock," or however they put it, some, some creepy, gross eugenics way of saying it, "would even be compatible with our amazing, you know, long life mushrooms." But, but you know, is that really a rare thing, or are they just crazy nutso?
Sara 19:27
Yeah, I think, I, yeah, I think they're probably just crazy and racist.
Lilly 19:31
I think probably. Uh, which, and then, you know, incest leading to the fall of the creepy British family is also a common theme in gothic literature. That's so I couldn't bring that up though because finding out that the patriarch has been doing this for hundreds of years is kind of a big deal. Something I absolutely loved about this book though is it also has some repeated imagery of fairytales,
Sara 20:01
Mm-hmm
Lilly 20:02
and at the end, Noemí is basically the prince who rides up to the castle to save the princess. But the princess is the youngest son of the family who is not as indoctrinated as everyone else. He still can't totally control himself, but he doesn't agree with it the way everyone else does
Sara 20:23
So i- is it a romance between Noemi and the youngest son?
Lilly 20:28
Eventually, yes. That not She kind of low-level flirts with him the whole time, but that's just sort of her character. She flirts. She's a flirty lady. That's fine. You know, she's a society girl,
Sara 20:41
Mm-hmm.
Lilly 20:41
which is m- maybe not exactly the phrase I mean, but you know what I'm saying. She goes to fancy parties, and that's just how she i- like interacts with people.
Sara 20:51
Uh-huh
Lilly 20:52
But he has literally never met anyone else, so he's very overwhelmed by it. But then she starts to actually really care for him, like as a person, because he's the only semi-normal one. And then you also find out he's really the only semi-normal one, and she saves him.
Sara 21:11
Mm-hmm
Lilly 21:12
Like, she literally has to carry him out at one point. And so it's very, it's very fairy tale in that way, but like a nice reversal of it
Sara 21:19
Mm-hmm. But they can't... I mean, if he's, if he's never had any sort of outside contact, they can't have a relationship of equals
Lilly 21:28
I was being a little dramatic. He's been to the little village that the castle, the manor is.
Sara 21:35
Okay, so, so he's not, he's not completely sheltered
Lilly 21:38
No, he has met other people. He's the only person in the family who can actually speak Spanish, and so that's how they plan her, like, how he helps her escape because the house is full of mushrooms. They can hear everything they're saying anywhere you are in the house. But all of those racist fucks never bothered to learn Spanish. So Francis is the, the good guy's name.
Sara 22:02
Uh-huh.
Lilly 22:03
He's the only one who bothered, so they can speak in Spanish to make their plans to escape. But so he, he would go into town for errands,
Sara 22:12
Mm-hmm
Lilly 22:12
but he never, like, stayed overnight there,
Sara 22:15
Mm-hmm.
Lilly 22:15
so it wasn't like he had friends.
Sara 22:18
Right
Lilly 22:19
I agree. They aren't, like, running off into the sunset to get married. She just says, Of course you're gonna come to Mexico City," where she's from. "You can't stay in the..." He's trying to stay in the house while it's burning down because he does... Like, "Where else will I go? This is the only place I know."
Sara 22:35
Mm-hmm.
Lilly 22:35
And she says, "No," like, "I'll, I'll take care of you. Don't worry," like, "I'll look out for you. I'll help you reintegrate into society," basically.
Sara 22:44
Mm-hmm.
Lilly 22:45
And it's, it's just, it's sweet.
Sara 22:47
What happens to the cousin?
Lilly 22:48
Also saved.
Sara 22:50
Oh, good
Lilly 22:50
I know. Uh, yes, Catalina's also saved. She's actually the one who f- manages to throw off the mind control long enough to kill basic... Well, she doesn't actually manage to kill him, but she harms him enough that they can start to run away, and she also murders her husband, who is complicit and do- like, does like this whole system they have going on there, which I'm, I'm, was really happy for her. She's basically catatonic through most of the book. But with her cousin there, she is able to sort of get the willpower to destroy these people who have tried to basically kidnap her
Sara 23:32
And kill her
Lilly 23:33
her life away. And yes, eventually yes. But I'm, I'm glad that she was able to have that moment instead of Noemi just
Sara 23:41
Yeah. It gives her back a little bit of agency it sounds like
Lilly 23:45
Yeah, exactly. That was really one of the overarching themes of this book, is even Francis, even though he doesn't like what his family is doing, he doesn't even try to go against them until Noemi is there and gives him a reason to try. Very, I mean, very dark, very dark book in some places, but it had a very satisfying, fulfilling, and optimistic ending with the, the spooky house burning down and destroying all of the mushrooms in it
Sara 24:16
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Lilly 24:18
It did make me hungry for grilled mushrooms though.
Sara 24:21
Yeah, that sounds good.
Lilly 24:22
Doesn't it?
Sara 24:24
It does
Lilly 24:29
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.
Sara 24:33
Come disagree with us! We're on Blue Sky and Instagram, at fictionfanspod. You can also email us at fictionfanspod at gmail. com. Or leave a comment on YouTube.
Lilly 24:44
If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and follow us wherever your podcasts live.
Sara 24:52
We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.
Lilly 24:58
Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated.
Sara 25:02
Bye!
