January 2024 - Mexican Gothic

 

"It's Lovecraft meets the Brontës in Latin America, and after a slow-burn start Mexican Gothic gets seriously weird." - The Guardian

 

Mexican Gothic

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2020)

Discussion -  January 17, 1pm

From the author: Mexican Gothic is a fun romp through a trove of Gothic tropes, including a dark and gloomy house, an alluring yet dangerous man, a family with secrets, and things that go bump in the night. But it’s also a story about those other ghosts: the ones that were left like a scar on the land. - Silvia Moreno-Garcia

 For more about the book: https://silviamoreno-garcia.com/writing/mexican-gothic/

Copies of the book available at the library. You can also Listen to or read it on Libby/Overdrive.

Prefer to buy a copy? Gibson's and Main Street Bookends will honor a 20% discount if you purchase the book at either place and tell them it's for this group. You can also buy the streaming audiobook from Libro (choose your favorite local bookstore) or other streaming outlet.

A Book Club Kit (pdf) is here. It has notes from the author about the genre, setting and context that are definitely worth reading. It also includes questions, a paper doll of Noemi (!), and a music playlist curated by the author. It doesn't, however, have the family tree that I really wanted while reading (or a map - I always want a map).

Additional Resources (check back for more through the month):

  • Here is a map showing the region of Hidalgo, where High Place is set. 
  • Moreno-Garcia had this to say about the setting: "El Triunfo, the town in Mexican Gothic, is inspired by Mineral del Monte (a.k.a. Real del Monte), a silver mining town located in central Mexico, high up the mountains of Hidalgo. It was mined by the British in the 19th century, which earned it the nickname ‘Little Cornwall.’ Like in the novel, there is an English Cemetery and it tends to be misty and rather cold and rainy during certain times of the year." She suggests that "to learn more about the region where Mexican Gothic takes place check out the non-fiction book A Silent Fury: The El Bordo Mine Fire, by Yuri Herrera, which deals with a mining tragedy that claimed the lives of more than 70 miners in Hidalgo."
  • A Doyle family tree made by a reader
  • Pictures of the English Graveyard mentioned in the book
  • A worthwhile interview with the author https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jau1ZW-BcxE

About the genre of Gothic Fiction: https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/spine-chillers-and-suspense-a-timeline-of-gothic-fiction/zvr9vk7 and https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30313775 and Wikipedia has a good, lengthy entry

Read more...

Our Patrons' Favorite Reads in 2023


Our Favorite Books in 2023 

We asked our patrons to name the best book they read in 2023. 

Here's what they said...

 

 

Fiction (adult and YA)

Long Shadows, Baldacci

The Postcard, Berest

Jayber Crow, Berry

Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury

Horse, Brooks (2 votes)

Save What’s Left, Castellano

The Concrete Blond, Connelly

The Hidden Child, Fein

The Running Grave, Galbraith

Lessons in Chemistry, Garmus

Sam, Goodman

The Weaver and the Witch Queen, Gornichec

Marvelous, Greeley

Silver Arrow, Grosman

Wellness, Hill

The Invisible Hour, Hoffman

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, Hoffman

Verity, Hoover

The Finkler Question, Jacobson

News of the World, Jiles

The Night Ship, Kidd

Demon Copperhead, Kingsolver (3 votes)

In the Lives of Puppets, Klune

The Bear, Krivak

The River We Remember, Krueger

Yellowface, Kuang

Babel, Kuang

North Woods (2 votes), Mason

Absolution, McDermott

The Silent Patient, Michaelides

Everything Sad Is Untrue, Nayeri

Resistance, Nielsen

Tom Lake, Patchett

Inspector Gamache series, Penny (2 votes)

Take My Hand, Perkins-Valdez

The Huntress, Quinn

Killers of a Certain Age, Raybourn (2 votes)

The Ministry for the Future, Robinson

Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, See

The Violin Conspiracy, Slocumb

Sadie, Summers

Lincoln Highway, Towles

The Covenant of Water, Verghese (2 votes)

In the Company of Witches, Wallace

Project Hail Mary, Weir (3 votes)

Seven Days in June, Williams

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Zevin

 

Nonfiction

The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest, Egan

Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl

The Upstairs Delicatessen: On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating, & Eating While Reading, Garner

The Wager: A Tale of Ship­wreck­, Mutiny and Mur­der, Grann (2 votes)

Shadow Divers: The True Ad­ven­ture…to ­Solve One of the Last Mys­ter­ies of WWII, Kursen

Underland: A Deep Time Journey, Macfarlane

The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, Macfarlane

Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of America’s Cemeteries, Melville

This Is Chance!: The Shaking of an All-American City, a Voice That Held It Together, Mooallem

Beaverland: How One Weird Ro­den­t Made Amer­i­ca, Philip

The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, Renkl

The Deepest Map: The High-Stakes Race to Chart the World's Oceans, Trethewey

 

Children’s

Ten in the Den, Butler

The World’s Greatest Detective, Carlson

The Inflatables (series), Garrod

Wonder, Palacio

The Lost Hero, Riordan

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Rowling

Chez Bob, Shea

Digger, Dozer, Dumper, Vestergaard

The Trumpet of the Swan, White