I have a new favorite niche – Mexican Gothic. Actually this genre and I go way back to my high school days. I was in Spanish III, junior year, and we read Doña Barbara by Romulo Gallego, written in 1929. OK, it was actually a Venezuelan novel rather than Mexican, but I suspect the landed gentry in those two countries were not all that different back in those days. Of course, my Spanish was still fledgling, so what was going on was frequently a mystery, but oh, the vibe. I never wanted to read an English translation, because it probably would have lost the mysterious grip it had on me. Loved it.
So I also loved Mexican Gothic, and here is another example of this genre. This one is probably more straight into the supernatural, but is every bit as much fun. So Beatriz’s father was executed during the Mexican War of Independence, and she and her mother are left to the mercies of those who killed him. Looking for a way out of the situation, she accepts the hand of Rodolfo Solorzano, wealthy landowner. She doesn’t exactly love him, but at least she hopes to bring her mother along, and get out of the town that killed her father.
Well, Solorzano has an estate out in the country, Hacienda San Isidro, to which he brings his young bride. And then promptly leaves her there alone as he does off on an extended business trip, as Gothic gentlemen tend to do. Unfortunately, the house seems to hate her, and attacks her with object-flinging fury, complete with a screaming ghost trapped in its walls. Of course, the former wife died mysteriously, something her husband refuses to discuss. Can we all channel Whoopi? Girl, you in danger.
What to do? Getting a priest to exorcise the house comes to her mind, and fortunately for her, she finds exactly the guy, Padre Andres, a cross between Hot Priest and Actual Witch. Good thing he hasn’t actually taken vows yet.