The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Big thanks to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for
providing me with an advanced copy of the prolific Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s new
book The Bewitching, a slow-burn gothic-styled folk horror mystery that tracks three
interrelated stories across different time periods and cultures. This is the
third book I’ve read from Moreno-Garcia, and I have a few on my to-be-read
list. I loved Silver Nitrate, and also found Mexican Gothic to be
a compelling story that challenged assumptions about race, class, and history. The
Bewitching combines both elements of these great novels, but I found it to
be slower moving than the propulsive Silver Nitrate. However,
Moreno-Garcia’s The Bewitching, which takes place in 1930s and 1990s New
England and 1908 Mexico, shares similarities with other New England writers
like Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, and even H.P. Lovecraft, who features in
the book. In fact, some parts of the book, where Minerva Contreras, a graduate
student working on her dissertation, reminded me of “The Dunwich Horror”, but
updated Lovecraft’s story to be more accessible and engaging. This part of the
book reminded me of how Moreno-Garcia took the cursed film urban legend in Silver
Nitrate and updated it for a new context, recasting the idea.
Moreno-Contreras mentions the idea of syncretic beliefs in the book’s
afterword, and The Bewitching is a book that combines elements of the
New England witch stories with those of Mexican culture, which, as
Moreno-Garcia notes, are a combination of both European and pre-Columbian Mexican
cultures. I loved this aspect of the book, and how Moreno-Garcia not only
references and draws parallels between the beliefs and cultures of these two
different groups, but also how the book references horror writers from both the
past and the present. Minerva is researching a writer who corresponded with
Lovecraft, but never really received the same kind of attention, and through
Minerva’s research, we learn about Beatrice “Betty” Tremblay and her forgotten masterpiece
The Vanishing. This 1998 storyline that follows Minerva’s research that
uncovers the backstory to Tremblay’s The Vanishing was my favorite of
the 3 narratives that converge around Minerva’s discoveries. First, Minerva has
excellent taste in music, and her song choices throughout this part of the book
reflect some of the best of the alternative music scene of the 90s. It was also
interesting to recall a time when email was a relatively new form of
communication on campus, so this part of the book took me back a bit. However,
as I mentioned previously, Minerva’s story is also somewhat similar to
Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror”, and it reminded me of the film adaptation
even more so. Through her research, Minerva learns that Trembley’s novel based
on the disappearance of one of Betty’s classmates, Ginny Somerset, an affluent
student who fell in love with a local boy who worked in the college town’s
factories. Lovecraft’s features a quest to find a book in a northeastern university
(Miskatonic U, located in Arkham), but the film follows a female grad college
student whose professor asks her to return the Necronomicon to the
library. Moreno-Garcia’s story and the Lovecraft stories both feature a book and
a mysterious, shady family that may have ulterior motives in exploiting the
female co-ed population of the local university. I loved these allusions to Lovecraft
and other horror writers—notably Trembley’s name is a reference to Paul Tremblay,
and Minerva notices a plaque in her school that recognized a department head
named Stephen Graham Jones. It was cool to see these kinds of horror
references, but I also appreciated how Moreno-Garcia uses Trembley’s history to
note often women horror writers are often overlooked for their contributions. Despite
the challenges of researching her topic, Minerva continues to uncover Beatrice
Trembley’s story and writings since other male horror writers have been overly
covered, and because it seems like Trembley has contributed to Lovecraft’s stories
as well as furthering the field of horror literature. It’s an important
reminder of how often women are overlooked in this genre.
Minerva’s narrative initially alternates with the story of
her Great Grandmother Nana Alba, and Alba’s story of trying to keep her family’s
farm, Piedras Quebradas, together after the loss of her father. Alba’s story
takes place in 1908 in Mexico after the death of Alba’s father, as her Uncle
Arturo arrives to help with managing the farm even though he is more of a
scholar and literary enthusiast who went to study at the university, plays
piano, and speaks French. These alternating narratives were a little
disorienting for me at first—there are many characters to become acquainted with,
and there are these alternating stories that take place in two different time
periods, with only Minerva’s and Alba’s family connection to join them. However,
as both stories progress, the connections between the two stories become more
apparent, especially as we learn more about mysterious disappearances on
Stoneridge’s campus and around Piedras Quebradas. I don’t want to say more
since there are some great twists and surprises towards the middle and end of
the novel. This is also one of the strengths of this novel, yet I didn’t feel
like the pace was as propulsive as Silver Nitrate. Rather, this was more
like Mexican Gothic, where the action was a little slower, but the
mysterious disappearances and strange characters as well as other strange
events leave readers wondering about whether Minerva is losing her mind, facing
incredible stress with her thesis, or if she’s possibly been bewitched by
someone at Stoneridge.
Minerva’s chance encounter with a drunken frat-type guy outside
of a party leads her to an encounter with Carolyn Yates, an elderly matron and
board member of Stoneridge, who was also classmates with both Betty and Ginny,
two individuals who Minerva is researching for her thesis. This encounter enables
Minerva to access Betty’s private papers, which Carolyn has held onto for some
time. While reading Betty’s journal and unpublished manuscript, readers are
exposed to a third narrative, detailing Betty’s perspective and the complications
that have arisen between Ginny, Carolyn, and two other men in their lives. We
also witness Ginny’s gradual mental deterioration, and how reading this also
affects Minerva, who begins to wonder whether she is experiencing similar strange
events that plagued Ginny before her disappearance. Although introducing this
third narrative brings in additional characters, I felt more aware of them
since Minerva and Carolyn previously discussed them and provided some
background; furthermore, this narrative furthers the overall narrative and
allows us to question some of these mysterious disappearances on campus,
especially one student who Minerva monitored as an RA. Moreno-Garcia’s
strengths with weaving these various narrative strands into an intriguing and
compelling tapestry is what makes this book a fun and exciting read. Although the
story may seem a little slow at first, the second half of the book for both Minerva
and Alba pick up and become both exciting and strange, in an interesting way,
as they both encounter different forms of witchcraft, with Alba doing battle a teyolloquani,
which I had to look up, and is a witch that sucks blood (from Nahuatl). There
are some really amazing descriptions of this witch’s power, as it slowly makes
its way closer and closer to Alba, eventually contacting her during sleep in a
creepy and disturbing instance that reminded me of an extreme attack of night
paralysis. Minerva also encounters forms of witchery, but her experience has
more to do with apotrpaic marks (another word I had to look up), which she
encountered in Betty’s papers. These two different, yet related, experiences
with witches brings in the syncretic ideas that Moreno-Garcia talks about in
the afterword, and shows more similarities than differences across cultures. As
someone who is interested in culture and folklore, this was another great quality
of the book that I enjoyed learning more about and discovering these
similarities.
Overall this was a great book. I was slightly concerned with
the pacing at the beginning of the book and the 3 dueling narratives, but
Moreno-Garcia deftly weaves these strands together to make a meaningful and
entertaining creation. Like Montserrat in Silver Nitrate, Minerva (also
a telling name) is a strong, Latina character who brings her culture and
experience as she navigates a new world of academia in New England, one that
often neglects and overlooks female voices. However, Minerva seeks to make
these contributions known, but also manages to recognize and acknowledge her Nana
Alba’s folk knowledge and experiences as she learns more and more about how
witchcraft affects the Stoneridge campus and community. This is a fun and
exciting book, and one that I think could make a great limited series. Highly
recommended, and I’m looking forward to catching up on some of Moreno-Garcia’s
other books.
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