Mexican Gothic is a 2020 Gothic Horror novel written by Mexican-Canadian author Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
Socialite Noemi Taboada enjoys her lavish life in the 1950s Mexico City. She lives in a swirl of taffeta, parties, and unadulterated glamor. However, after receiving a disturbing letter from her newly-wed cousin, Catalina, Noemi finds herself in the remote estate of Catalina's husband, Virgil, and his family. High Place has been in the Doyle family for decades, if not centuries, and seems to pulse with a life-force of its own. The longer Noemi stays, the more bizarre and disturbing things she sees, or at least thinks she sees. With the help of Virgil's younger cousin, Francis, Noemi unearths the dark secrets of the place her beloved cousin now calls home. And all the secrets come with a sickly sweet stench and golden glow.
This novel contains examples of the following tropes:
- Ancient Tomb: Where the fungus is most highly concentrated.
- And I Must Scream: Agnes has been alive for ages and serves as the power behind the Gloom. She is still conscious, but her body has deteriorated. Noemi gives her a mercy kill by burning her.
- Arc Words: "Open your eyes" and "Et verbum caro factum est".*
- Big Fancy House: High Place.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Howard and his wives.
- Buried Alive: This happened to Agnes.
- Cassandra Truth: Dr. Camarillo has this reaction when a bedraggled Noemi, Francis and Catalina appear at his practice, and Noemi has a badly broken hand. After all, he had warned Noemi to bring her cousin to him for treatment, just not in this manner. He doesn't quite believe them when Noemi says that Virgil killed everyone in the High Place and set it on fire, given hers and Francis's wedding outfits, but sees they nearly died and administers medical treatment. The doctor is relieved they are alive.
- Creepy Cemetery: The English cemetery at High Place.
- Creepy Family: The Doyles
- Damsel in Distress: Catalina, whom Noemi has come to rescue. She becomes more useful in the climax when helping her cousin and Francis escape. When Francis collapses after Noemi gives a Mercy Kill to Agnes, Catalina helps get him out of the burning room and down the mountain.
- Death of a Child: One of the things Noemi sees in the Gloom.
- Don't Go Into the Woods: One of the rules of High Place—only partly for fear of hidden ravines and mountain lions.
- The Dragon: Virgil is Howard's right-hand man. Except he's really The Starscream.
- Eldritch Location: The entirety of High Place and its surrounding grounds.
- Foreshadowing: Upon arriving at the high-place, the first meal that Noemi is served is chicken with a sauce she describes as Rich, white, unpleasant, and full of mushrooms much like the Doyle family.
- Gold Digger: In light of the reveal, Noemi determines that Virgil never really loved Catalina. He seduced her and married her not just for Howard's "breeding stock" but also because of her money. Virgil admits this is true, since the Mexican Revolution apparently took away the Doyles' fortune, and they can't otherwise maintain their lifestyle.
- Gorgeous Period Dress: Noemi's wardrobe is the height of 1950s fashion.
- Gothic Horror: Duh.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Francis. Subverted hard with Every Doyle except Francis.
- Haunted House: Catalina's letter insists High Place is this. It is haunted, although not in the traditional way; the Gloom stores the consciousnesses of everyone connected to it, and also acts as rudimentary telepathy, so living infected can talk to dead ones.
- Hope Spot: Realizing she's in over her head, Noemi determines she should leave, find a doctor for Catalina, and inform her father about what's been going on in the House. She can't determine exactly what is wrong, but knows that this is not a one-woman job. The Doyles cotton on to her intentions and infect her with the fungus, so that she's physically unable to leave.
- I Have You Now, My Pretty: Virgil pretends to do this once Francis and Noemi's plan has been found out, and they are separated after the wedding as part of his Batman Gambit to usurp Howard.
- Impoverished Patrician: The Doyles are not as rich as they once were, because their silver mines are no longer making enough money. In fact, when Noemi confronts Virgil about it, believing Catalina's money mattered more to him, Virgil admits that it's true.
- Inbred and Evil: All the Doyles are inbred, all of them are evil except Ruth and Francis. Also includes their Villainous Incest.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Averted. Catalina does cough due to her tuberculosis, but her illness does not kill her.
- Kill It with Fire: In classic Gothic fashion, Noemi defeats the fungus by setting it on fire, and High Place burns to the ground.
- Kissing Cousins: The main way the Doyles are able to keep their connection with the fungus
- Madwoman in the Attic: At first, Catalina seems set up to be this. It's a subversion when we learn she was telling the truth about everything and her illness was due to the fungus infecting her.
- Mercy Kill: Agnes wants to die after seven hundred years of being Howard's fungus Hive Mind. Noemi uses fire to deliver that to her and stop Virgil from killing Francis.
- Old, Dark House: High Place is this, partly because the generator doesn't produce enough electricity to light the whole house.
- Ominous Fog: The mist that seems to constantly enshroud High Place.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Played for Laughs; at the end, Noemi jokes to Francis that he was Asleep for Days like Sleeping Beauty, and she was worried about dislodging an apple from his throat. Francis corrects her that it's Snow White with the apple
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: The fungus is anchored in the technically-still-living body of Howard's first wife/sister Agnes. Noemi sets her on fire to destroy the fungus and set them all free.
- Really 700 Years Old: Howard extends his life by body-hopping into his descendants.
- Real After All: All of Noemi's disturbing dreams and her sleepwalking turn out to have been real occurrences in The Gloom.
- Sanity Slippage: What's happening to Catalina, or at least seems to be happening to her. The mushrooms are doing a number on her, but they're damaging her ability to communicate and her will, not making her hallucinate. Everything she tries to tell her family about is real.
- Spoiled Sweet: Noemi is the Socialite version of this, although she isn't particularly nice to Hugo, her boyfriend back home in Mexico City.
- Spooky Painting: Of Howard Doyle's late wives. There are also Spooky Photographs of more recent Doyle women.
- Token Good Teammate: Francis is the only Doyle that doesn't buy into the eugenics nonsense that Howard peddles. While he insists that he's been infected with the Gloom and cannot defy his mother or Howard, he determines that Noemi is right to call him out for being complicit in hers and Catalina being essentially kidnapped. Francis conspires to help her and Catalina escape, and doesn't even consider that he should go as well.
- Unseen Evil: the fungus that completely inundates the High Place until you know what to look for.
- Wham Line: When Howard says that he intends to possess Francis, not Virgil. Everyone assumed that he would take the handsome, strong one for his new body, but he actually wants to keep Virgil around as his right hand.
- You Don't Want to Know: Dr. Camarillo accepts the story that Noemi tells him that Virgil tried to kill her, Catalina and Francis since it's the closest thing to the truth. He seems to understand there's more to the story, and they have to tell the cops what happened, but he doesn't want to press them.
