Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s 'Mexican Gothic' to be featured Big Read book

Purdue’s Department of English is partnering with West Lafayette and Tippecanoe County public libraries as well as other organizations to bring Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s "Mexican Gothic" to local readers.

A New York Times bestseller, "Mexican Gothic" won the 2021 Locus Award for Best Horror Novel as well as the Goodreads Choice Award for Horror. It was also named one of the best books of 2020 by the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, NPR, Marie Claire, the Washington Post, Library Journal and more. 

"Mexican Gothic" has garnered praise for its captivating blend of feminist gothic tropes, Mexican history and weird science. Equal parts foreboding and thrilling, the book is set in 1950s Mexico. A frightening, deranged message from her recently married cousin, Catalina, sends Noemí Taboada to High Place, an English family estate built amid silver-mine-pocked mountains on soil brought directly from England and home to Virgil Doyle, Catalina’s alluring, British-Mexican husband. Noemí puts her wits and charm to the test as she seeks to learn the cause of Catalina’s distress. What she gathers from conversations with townspeople, Doyle family members and her own noticeably disturbed cousin leaves Noemí — and readers — questioning who or what to believe. The stakes extend beyond Catalina’s personal safety to the fate of a former mining village and a whole region haunted by the colonial past and present. 

“A Conversation with Silvia Moreno-Garcia” will be held virtually on Nov. 2. Copies of "Mexican Gothic" are available at local libraries and bookstores.

The Big Read, now in its sixth year, promotes reading and discussion of timely, relevant works of literature. Free copies of the text are being provided to high schools, public and community college libraries, and lifelong learning organizations thanks to the Harriet M. Crews and Sandra K. Biggs Endowment for the Department of English in Support of the Big Read.

Source: Derek Pacheco, dpacheco@purdue.edu