September 23, 2023 • 47 mins
A creepy mansion, shifty family, burgeoning romance and a determined heroine. Come join us as we get to the roots of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's 2020 horror novel Mexican Gothic in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie, and welcome to Stefan Never told
you a production of iHeartRadio. So for today's classic, we're
bringing one back that I really hesitated to bring back
because it's really new in terms of when we bring
(00:25):
back classics. But I loved this book, and we are
in Hispanic Heritage month and we are in the time
where I'm wanting to devour all things creepy, and I
just yeah, I really really enjoyed this book and it
(00:45):
fits all of the criteria. As far as I know,
the show isn't out yet. I did a brief Google
search before this and I didn't see it, so that's
still that's still on the horizon. But if you miss
this the first fir time, if you haven't read this book,
really recommend it and please enjoy this classic episode. Hey,
(01:11):
this is Annie and Samantha. I'm not good with Stephan
Never told you protection of iHeartRadio. And today we have
a Halloween.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Edition of a book Club. Ooh, I'm very excited about this.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
But before we get into it, I just have a
question out of curiosity to Samantha. When you read books,
do you picture like actors are people that you know visually?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
When you read or hear like a character's description.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
No, I have a vague, ghost like picture of them,
and does have a generic picture of what they look like,
but they're they're never of someone specific.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
I've thought about this before because when things turned into movies,
are they I'm like, oh, that is not who I pictured,
But I can't tell you exactly because it's not I
go by what they say, but it's not ever of
a person that I know.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, you know, that's really interesting because lately we've seen
kind of a spate of people creating programs that are like,
this is what the character would really look like based
on the description.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I always have, like an actor or somebody.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
I have, I have a clear picture in my head,
and I just feel like that this book was very
descriptive and very easy for me to kind of put like, oh,
it's this, so it's this, so it's this, and I
just it really painted a picture.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
In my head for me.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Okay, who did you picture?
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Well, I could tell you, but it would I would
have to look up all the actors' names, because as
you know, I'm not good with actors names.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
That's fair, But I could do it.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I could do it, and I think it's part of
that is also just the cover art can influence that.
I've seen some stuff from the show. They're they're shooting
a show about this for Hulu, so some of that
can influence it. I remember, like when Harry Potter came out,
I had such a strong.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Like in my brain, who everybody looked like? That?
Speaker 1 (03:17):
When the movies came out, I kind of almost had
like a breakdown is too strong of a word, but
it was like a war in my brain of like
who do they actually look like? And they sort of
all kind of came together and created a composition of both,
which is really interesting. But I can still remember, at
(03:37):
least for a lot of the big characters what they
looked like in my head versus what who.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Was actually cast.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
So I just always find that interesting when people tell
me like, oh, I always thought this character would like
look like this person or this person or this person.
And listeners, if you have any thoughts or experiences about that,
please let let us know, because I really am interested
in it. But today we have to issue a spoiler
alert because we are going to spoil the heck of
(04:05):
this recent book because we're talking about Silvia Monino Gusse's
twenty twenty novel Mexican Gothics. So it's pretty recent and
I really enjoyed it. If you don't want to be spoiled,
leave now, go read it.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
It's a pretty quick reread and then come back and
then come back. And it was very, very successful.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
It was critically acclaimed, and yes, is now being made
into a show for Hulu.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
A content warning.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
We are discussing a little bit of eugenics, suicidality, general grossness, death.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Murder, cannibalism.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
We're not getting too much into any of thatens llucinogens.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yes, that is true.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
It's so funny sometimes when we put the like content
warnings together and like this is making it sound so
much worse it's going to be.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
But I just don't want to miss.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Anything, right, But yeah, all those topics are on the table.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
If that gives you a taste for what this book
is about.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
And yeah, it does have influences of Jane Austen and
Emily Bronte, which I wanted to talk with you about,
right because before we recorded this, Samantha, one of the
reasons I was like, I think we should do this
one was because I know you like Gothic, and I've
read did it kind of had some stuff to do
with like Jane Austen Emily Bronte, So I was like,
I think Samantha will like this one. I'm interested in it.
(05:25):
And you said before like you got that vibe right.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Right immediately, like I was like, oh, is this supposed
to be a retailing of Weathering Heights because it's kind
of that all ominous bit with and it's true with
like the head of the household haunting the entire home
type of thing. So yeah, I was like, Okay, this
is definitely that. And then they actually make mention of
the authors and I was like, there, it is perfect.
(05:49):
I wouldn't say Jane Austen necessarily, because Jane Austin was
not in Horror in any way whatsoever or the Darkness,
so I don't think that would be true of it.
But the Bronte sisters for sure, Mary Shelley maybe even
which sounds like Katerina loved those authors as well, but
you know that's further down the road. But yeah, I
(06:12):
was immediately the style of it, the way that it
sets up the characters, boy, that it sets up the
romance very ominous you know something's going down. You know,
she's walking and thinking everything's fine, and they're like, oh,
nothing's okay, and.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
It's a trap. Like that's the entirety of the.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Thing, And much like the Bronte Sisters, the home has
a huge part in being part of the darkness.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, it's very like I said, the author does a
great job of painting a picture because immediately you can
see like this fog and they're going up this hill
and there's this old mansion there, and there's just something
off about it. Like the atmosphere was excellently done. And
it did remind me of the Bronte Sisters of things
(06:58):
I've read from them.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
I know, so they enjoyed it. I enjoyed it very much.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Oh I did too. I really enjoyed it. I was
telling everybody about it and like what are you talking about?
Like you got to read it?
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Yeah, and it really draws you in. At least that
was my experience. It was kind of immediately like who
I want to know?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
What's going on?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
It painted these really vivid and often unsettling or disturbing images,
and yeah, much of it does take place in this
decaying mansion that is shrouded by fuck.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
So the environment is a big piece of it.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
It is very atmospheric and very excellent building tension because
you're like, oh, something's wrong. Something's wrong. I don't know
what it is, and something's off. Just all these little things.
You're like, oh, all right, so let's get into the platte.
The story takes place in nineteen fifties Mexico and follows
(07:49):
Noami Taboada, a young, beautiful, clever, stubborn, witty social light
who dates for fun is studying anthropology. Kind of gives
that vibe of someone who's like trying a lot of things,
but is really into anthropology at this current juncture. After
receiving a bizarre letter from her cousin Katalina, claiming that
(08:10):
her English husband, a Virgil Doyle, is poisoning her, Noami
leaves Mexico City for the Doyle home, which is called
High Place and it's located in the mountains outside of
a small town called El Trionfo And Miami does this
at the behest of her father. Her father is like,
you're so stubborn, You're so determined. I know you can
(08:31):
get to the bottom of this. Something is wrong.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Well you please go and look into this.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
And I really want to read the letter that they
receive from Catalina that starts this whole thing, because I
think it gives a really good vibe of like the
writing and what's going on. Okay, he is trying to
poison me. The house is sick with rot, stinks of decay,
brims with every single evil and cruel sentiment. I have
tried to hold onto my wits to keep this foulness away,
(08:58):
but I cannot, and I find myself losing track of
time and thoughts. Please please, They are cruel and unkind,
and they will not let me go. I bar my door,
but still they come. They whisper at nights, and I
am so afraid of these restless dead, these ghost, fleshless things.
The snake eating its tail, the foul ground beneath our feet,
(09:19):
the false faces and false tongues, the web upon which
the spider walks, making the strings vibrate. I am Catalina,
Catalina Taboada, Catalina, Kata Kata, come out to play. I
miss Noemi. I pray I'll see you again. You must
come for me, know, Ami, you have to save me.
I cannot save myself as much as I wish to,
(09:40):
I am bound threads like iron through my mind and
my skin, and it's there in the walls. It does
not release its hold on me. I must ask you
to spring me free, cut it from me, Stop them now,
for God's sake.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
Oo too.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
And now, knowing the end, I'm like, oh she.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Was saying, she's saying it, yeah, all of it. So
Nimi is transported to the High Place by Francis Doyle,
and the road is treacherous and misty, and upon arrival,
she's immediately unnerved and annoyed by the strict rules of
the house, largely imparted to her by Francis's mother, Florence.
She's not allowed to visit her cousin without a chaperone.
(10:23):
There's no speaking at dinner, no smoking, which, by the way,
Nimi smokes. Yes, she's one of those cool girls that
like the way you picture it, they describe it. She's
one of those cool girls and things like that. Florence
clearly does not want her to be there, and the
house itself isn't welcoming either, dark and decaying with patches
of black mold. Also, they are very behind in technology,
(10:47):
uses lamps, oils, oil lamps and candles.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
There's no radio, there's no TV.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Everything is a little dark and they like it that way,
just so you know. And yes, it's the kine with
patches of black molds every where. Even the wine is
clothing and almost rotten, too sweet over the top. The
head of the house, Howard Doyle, is old and ill
and inappropriate. Miami is informed that Catalina is suffering from tuberculosis.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
But she is.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Unconvinced. And yeah, by the way, Francis is someone important
and they are. She tries to flirt with him at
the very beginning.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
She does. She does, and you can tell he's like, oh, yeah, this.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Is He's not been around many women.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
So once Miami is permitted to see Catalina, she begs
Miami to get her a tincture from a woman in
town named Marta Duval and by tricking the family because
they're pretty sure, they're like, you can't go it's too
high to get up here, you can't go down. So
Miami tricks the family and is able to get a
ride into town and to walk around unhindered, and she
goes to talk to Marta, who tells her that the
(11:56):
family is cursed, and that one of the Doyle, Ruth,
killed several of the family members, shooting Howard before taking
her own life.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Howard survived.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
In another instance of Francis' father, Richard, was found dead
in a ditch near the home. Noami then goes to
visit the local doctor, asking him to come to high
place to give a second opinion on Catalina, and the
doctor is really reluctant because he's like, Oh, I'm not welcome.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
They don't want me up there.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
And Howard himself has made recent racist comments about how
none of the locals are competent, but he ultimately agrees
the local doctor agrees to come and give his opinion.
And let's step back a bit and talk about Howard
and the Doyles at large, because all right, So, during
the eighteen hundreds, British companies and families flooded into Mexico
(12:42):
in order to take advantage of local resources. The Doyles
in this book are one such family, and the house
is near a once profitable silver mine that was later flooded.
There's this cemetery on the property with some of the
bodies of people who died working in the mine. They
are to reopen the mind, Noami learns, and she suspects
(13:04):
that they intend to somehow make Catalina docile in order
to use her money without her complaints. Howard frequently speaks
of quote superior and inferior types and of survival of
the fittest, and keeps books on the subject around. Something
that angers Naimi, which in turn seems to amuse Howard.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
So the local doctor confirms that it fits tuberculosis. It's
unlike any he has ever seen. And by the way,
when Miami was in a town and meets with Marta,
is too because Catalina sends her to her as the healer.
She's a healer and gets a tinture to Catalina. Finally,
but oh dear, it calls to have a seizure and
(13:47):
makes the Doyles even stricter about when Naomi can visit her.
Of course, they all play the victim kind of gas
lighter hmm. Naomi starts having disturbing dreams and visions of
a gold woman, a buzzing coming from the walls, the
mold moving, pulsating and almost calling to her, and her
dreams that seem real, unpleasant ones that seems to almost
drug her to having sex with Virgil and wakes up
(14:07):
to after she hears place of open her eyes. She
starts sleepwalking, something she hasn't done since she was a child,
and feels that she's losing her grip on reality early,
similar to what happened to her cousin, and she begins
to suspect that Catalina may not be ill and the
house is haunted or at least coming for them.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Meanwhile, as all of this is happening, know Ami and
Francis do grow closer, Sincenomi has to smoke outside. They
walk around the misty grounds together, and know Ami learns
that Francis, who is definitely the black sheep of the
family studies mushrooms and insects, is well read and interesting.
Know Ami, who has enjoyed many relationships in the past
(14:52):
and continues to enjoy like it's kind of funny how
often she'll be sort of like, she's not my usual type.
She feels herself growing closer to him. However, he is
still somewhat distant and warns her that speaking Spanish is
not allowed in the home and that they can hear
you that she should leave. He's clearly like very on
(15:14):
edge and worried about her. This is underscored by other
comments from the family like smoking, Hurt says just things
like that it's very sketchy.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
So growing increasingly frustrated and disturbed, too afraid to sleep,
and feeling cut off. After Martha disappears, Noimi decides to
send a letter to her father requesting he's send help
or at least trying to go out and get help somehow,
trying to leave the place.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
She's done. She's done with this place. She needs to
get out.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
But the night before her departure, the Doyles informed her
they'll have one final dinner together and that she must
see Howard before she leaves.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
To NOI me, he's horror.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Howard is covered in boils, one of his legs bloated,
and he is clearly on desk door and by the way,
he's like she had imagined she was going to come
into him being tucked in as sickly. No, no, he's
naked and showing off all his boots, including the boils,
and the smell of his body is terrible, and she
tries to flee, but Virgil and Florence forced her to
hit her knees in front of him, and he kisses
(16:17):
her really grows by the way, making her swallow with
the black liquid from his mouth that stains his teeth,
that gets literally oozing out of his face, and she
feels incredibly ill and passes out, having visions h No.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
When she wakes, Francis is in her room watching over her,
and she is understandingly furious. Francis explains that Howard is
actually hundreds of years old. He at one time he
was quite ill and determined to find a cure for
his illness, so he found locals in this area who
were using a strain of mushroom to heal themselves. Howard
(16:52):
exploited this and formed a symbiotic relationship with the mushroom
and part after eating the infant of a local woman
who had used the mushroom, obviously against her will. Many
others who partook died, but Howard believed his survival meant
he could use his medicinal knowledge to make himself a mortal,
(17:14):
and to accomplish this requires a number of things. So firstly,
the house is infused with the mushroom.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
The air inside is full of spores.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
It heals the family in there and makes their lives
last longer. It is what has been calling ton Ami,
dulling her senses, making her want to give into Virgil's
advances and wants her to become part of the family. Secondly,
the exploitation of the working class in order to fund
(17:45):
their internal lives is something that they have to do
to achieve this immortality.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Thirdly, they need children.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Howard didn't want to quote dirty the bloodline, so he
decided to have children with his sisters. Lately, though, the
women of the family have not been producing as many children,
and Howard, to Florence's chagrin, believes introducing new blood like
Catalina and Noemi, who are combatible with the fungus, is
the key to their survival. The visions Noemi has been
(18:15):
experiencing are what they call the gloom, which is essentially
a hive mind or like that kind of spiderweb thing
that Catalina described in the letter at the top. Since
the mycilium is connected and bodies can serve as mulch
for it, it has absorbed the memories of those before it,
and that means that Howard can transfer himself into a
(18:35):
younger body. It also kind of explains like the haunting
it's sort of like these memories that you experience in
the Gloom. Francis tells Noami in Spanish that he will
help her gather supplies because again they don't understand Spanish,
and that the tincture disrupts the effects of the spores
but must be used sparingly. No amis hesitant to trust him,
(19:00):
also understandable, but agrees on the condition that he helped
rescue Catalina too, and later she also decides he should
leave with them. Francis informs her that the fungus keeps
them from leaving, that that is what happened to his father,
Richard when he tried to escape.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
That's how he ended up in that ditch.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
She may be able to leave, but he is part
of the family as and much longer exposed to this fungus,
will not be able to But Miami does not give
up and communicates with the women before her in the Gloom,
like through her dreams, to try to find a solution
to this. Frances gives her the tincture and a razor
(19:38):
blade after she asks for a weapon. Noaimi attempts an escape,
but only makes it a few meters outside before the
house and the fungus makes it feel like she can't breathe.
Virgil carries her inside and humiliates and harasses her. She
is told she must marry Francis, who in turn instructs
her to play along. That their chance of escape will
be when Howard's body dies and he transfers his consciousness
(20:02):
into Virgil. That Ruth weakened all of them when she
killed some of the family and attempted to kill Howard.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Right, yeah, Ruth is one of the daughters who hated
the process.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
I guess all the women kind of hated it, except
for Florence, correct from what I can gather, Like we
find out Agnes later on.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
I couldn't get a real read on Agnes.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I couldn't tell if she like willingly sacrificed herself or
unly sacrificed.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yah are all important, But yes, the women were not happy.
Ruth was one of them that was very not happy
and tried to get out. Try to kill everybody did
not work. So all these things happened. Ruth was the voice,
by the way that said open your eyes. One of
the things that that was interesting. The pair Francis and
(20:51):
uh Nymi are married and they prepared to escape. However,
Francis is detained and Virgil reveals he drugged them and
makes clear he desires to make annoy Ami his Noami
fights him off, knocks him off, taking a sip of
some of the attentionure, and retrieving the razor. So all
this happened while Virgil was pretty much attacking and accosting her.
(21:14):
Catalina has them too, and they go to find Frances
only to discover his mother is coercing him to giving
his body to Howard, so it was always France's and
not Virgil.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Oh dear the plan.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Miami tries to stop him, and Florence attacks her, who
was really strong at this point, leading to Francis killing
her row. Catalina stabs Howard in the eye because she
comes awake and alive and starts stabbing the hell out
of him, and the trio flees into the mines and
tunnels as the house shudders around them, and they feel
the pain because Howard's in pain and Francis is struggling
(21:48):
under the influence of the fungus as well.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
It's bad, Yeah, it's not good.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
So they find Agnes's grave and Agnes is one of
the sisters, one of Howard's sisters that he that he married, Yes,
that he married. They find her grave and no Ami
realizes that she was sacrificed, buried alive so that the
fungus could have a human mind. And that's something Howard
like determined that it needed, was this human mind. And
(22:17):
she exists as a living, waking nightmare, a body to
grow spores out of so Howard can control his family
and others in their orbit.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
No Amy tells her to open her eyes.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
She tells Agnes to open her eyes, which, yeah, just
as she has heard in her visions. Virgil reveals that
he always intended for Howard to die and now wants
to truly take his place, because yeah, Virgil has just appeared,
and he wants to use Catalina and know Ami for
childreness like Howard. Catalina says Virgil in the eye, and
(22:50):
no Amy sets the body of Agnes on fire. All
the mushrooms start to burn and the trio scapes down
the mountain. They are cared for by the local doctor,
though Francis takes several days to wake. When he does,
he reveals he has a dream of high place and
better condition than ever, that he is locked in and
unable to escape its opulence. They also kind of question,
(23:10):
like if you burn mushrooms a lot of times mushrooms
grow better out of the ashes, which also gave me pokes.
It's like, oh but anyway, uh no. Amy tells him
it was just a dream and promises to take into
Mexico City where they can be together.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
The end, it was ominous ending.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
I was like, okay, so I must ask, do you
know anything about Hillo series?
Speaker 2 (23:45):
I don't. I think it's the ten part series, that's all.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
Okay, So it's gonna be a limited series.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Are they going to try to open it up like
Game of Thrones and we're all gonna be disappointed?
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I don't know about that. I don't think, so, okay,
just check it. But it was I mean, it was
definitely to me, it felt like it there was room
for a sequel, and this is the reason rogue.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
So she did leave it open unless if they could
be haunted by this, as if there's going to be
a call for them, because there's also like the whole
legends that a lot of the miners were burned alive
on purpose or purposely killed let to die so they
could be fertilizer.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
For those yeah mulch mulch they.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Were called yeah yeah, Okay, well just get into the themes.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Then, let's get into the themes.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
One of the big themes, yes, is using women and
using the working class. So I wanted to start with
this quote. No Amy, like any good socialite, shopped at
the Palatio Derio, painted her lips with Elizabeth Arden lipstick,
owned a couple of very fine furs, spoke English with
remarkable ease courtesy of the nuns at the Monticeta, a
(24:52):
private school, of course, and was expected to devote her
time to the twin pursuits of leisure and husband hunting. Therefore,
to her, any pleasant activity must also involve the acquisition
of a spouse. That is, she should never have fun
for the sake of having fun, but only as a
way to obtain a husband, which would have been fine
and well if father had actually liked Hugo. But Hugo
(25:14):
is a mere junior architect, and Miami was expected to
aspire higher. So I want to include that because this
is right in the beginning. Hugo is this guy she's
attracted to. She's hanging out with this costume party in
the beginning, And I feel like this code is a
really good example of a lot of things we talked
(25:34):
about in persuasion. But you know this idea, you have
to get a husband, that's your whole goal. You have
to get a good husband of good standing. But this
was sort of this whole book was sort of the
like horror of that. This whole book was, Oh, Catalina
did that, and now she's trapped in this night like
living nightmare where she's basically just a just a shell
(26:00):
of her past self and someone to use for money
so that they can open their mind again.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
And they're trying to do that to know am me
as well, and.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Also just someone used to create, pro create to get children.
This is like this whole statement of like, oh, you've
got to find a good husband, that's your whole point
in life. This book was like whoa, Okay, but look
at the horror right.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Well, also, you have to remember the reason she came. Yes,
she wanted to save Catalina, but the bargain was that
her father was going to let her go to the
university to continue to study in theothology. And the only
way she could do this was by doing this favor
and her mother was very disappointed and the fact that
she wanted to go and said the line that is,
(26:47):
you're supposed to be a debutante to wife and anything
in between was a distraction from the true purpose.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
So like, that's.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
The entirety, Like even though yes, they're a little more normal,
I guess is the word, but like this at this point,
that's the whole purpose of women in Mexico. And she
was talking about the fact in the nineteen fifties Mexican
women were not even allowed to vote, so of course
this made sense. This is their livelihoods. But yeah, the
tragedy of it is holy crap. Look at what happens.
(27:17):
We become a who old trap and we become sacrificial to.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
The patriarch, which is that conversation?
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Ye, right, And this is the line girls were supposed
to follow a simple life cycle from debutante to wife
to study further when we mean to delay the cycle
to remain a chrysalis inside a cocoon. And yeah, exactly,
that's that line. She was not cool either way to
being just herself.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah, yeah, And I think.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
There was a part of me that when I was
reading it, like you never really get to see Catalina
before she's induced to this state.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
But the way that annoying me to describes her as
she was a very vibrant woman, kind very kind like
she was a very just.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Lively interesting person. And now you just see her and
she's in bed and kind of like a very shell
of herself. And no Amy, I felt was a very
I thought interesting hero. And I thought she was like, Oh,
she's funny, she's witty, she's charming, she's got these interest
(28:30):
and faults and all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
And I liked her a lot.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
And then to see her like, again, I could be
reading way too deep into this, but to see her
kind of pulled into this marriage she did not want,
which is what happened to a lot of women. And
to hear you're going to be used for children and
that's it. To see her reduced to that was like, oh,
(28:52):
this is kind of what we were asking of women
a lot at this time in marriages. Was like, you
make yourself smaller, you reduce yourself, and you are secondary
to whatever.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
The man, the head of the household needs.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah, here's another quote. Mister vascal Esos makes it very
clear that the unattractive will not procreate. Beauty attracts beauty
and begets beauty. It is a means of selection. You see,
I am offering you a compliment. So this is by
Howard and he's being all creepy, which is often all
(29:32):
the time, but that was throughout the book too. Is
kind of really reducing people to genetics. That's where this
whole idea of like superior and inferior and genetics comes in.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
But it's just really grows. It's just really gross or.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
To hear them talk that way, and to know that
this guy has lived a hundred years and is really
looking at it as just like, how can I prolong
my life in the life of my family?
Speaker 2 (30:02):
How can you play a role in this right?
Speaker 3 (30:06):
And the thing is like, I don't think it's just
even his family, it's just his life. So he just
needs to use the children for him to continue to live.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Which I thought was interesting too because I feel like
that's you know, we've talked about this before, but that
idea of your children being more a representative view than
actually something like you're you're more concerned about how they
represent you than themselves, And that was definitely shining through
(30:36):
in this in this book, because yeah, he.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
You know, I just realized I thought Fences couldn't be
his next in line because that wasn't his kid. Yes,
it was his grandkid, but not his kid. I thought
it had to be his kid.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I think they thought so, but they were so desperate.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Oh so they because they didn't. Why didn't he use
Virgil just.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
For because he liked Virgil better so.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
Vert, but that was his actual kid.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yes, but he wanted Virgil to like, he actually wanted
him to live and have his own life because he
was the quote better one. So Francis was more expendable.
So I'm going to try it with him, and if
it doesn't work, then I'm sure they would have gone
for Virgil, which is why, probably why Virgil was like, no,
I'm going to kill this guy.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Because yeah, if I remember correctly, it was never like
it had to be his kid or something.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
I think they really tried to keep it very in
the blood, and this was there like, oh god, it's
not working.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
We have to branch out because we're dying off desperate.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
That was a sidetrack, yes, yes, but here's another quote
to underline this point. A woman's function is to preserve
the family line, and I think that that was throughout, Yes,
this idea, we need the women to have the children.
But after that, like that's all they're they're all, they're good.
(32:01):
And you see this suffering of Agnes especially which again,
as I said, I wasn't clear, and maybe it could
because I read this in one sitting because I was like, oooh,
I wasn't clear. I felt like Agnes did agree to
sacrifice herself.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
She was like, Okay, I'll do it.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
But then after because essentially involved bearing her alive, right
and so in that she was in that process, she
was like, Okay, maybe I didn't want this or maybe
I was wrong, but throm that the spores grow and
the mycilium grows, and so it's like her living nightmare.
(32:38):
But it's the pain of this one woman who was
keeping this whole thing alive.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
And she's, yeah, she's having this nightmare.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
It's really pretty disturbing and descriptive of when you finally
realize what's going on and how it describes her as
just this like trapped woman who is just in this
nightmare and that's her whole existence, and like to have
that woman's pain at the suffering of all of.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
This, at the heart of all of this I think is.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Pretty telling about how we treat women. It's something we've
talked about a lot in our horror things about how
we'll just use women's pain for all kinds of things.
In this case, Yeah, and then something else is definitely
the suffering and expendability in the minds of this family
(33:37):
of the working class, because the servants are seen as
kind of like test cases for this fungus. Are either
they are husk like they are literally servants that are
living in the house that are just kind of hollowed
out and controlled by this fungus, and that is what
(33:58):
kind of props them up up. You got the miners, yeah,
who who are buried, So just using people in that
cool way and throwing them away. And then there was
a lot of stuff, especially in the beginning, because I
would say this book took a turn in the middle
about what you thought where it was going. Maybe you
(34:20):
knew it was ominous, but you weren't quite sure. But
there was a whole there's a whole lot of stuff
I noticed about women navigating men and social situations. So
here's a quote I wouldn't say demanding exactly concern, more
like she replied taking care to smile to show him
this was really a small matter that might be easily resolved,
and it must have worked for he nodded, And I
(34:42):
just remember reading that being like, so, yeah, this is
still we still talk about doing this stuff as women
of like you got to put on your smile, You
got to manage this man's anger and his expectations and whatever.
And you know, at first when she first gets there,
like you know, something's off, but she's still trying to
be and still trying to get what she wants by
(35:03):
managing these people. And you just see so many instances
of her having to deal with like real nonsense and
having this fear of what will happen if she doesn't placate.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Them, right, She definitely has to control her temper ayes. Yeah,
And then there's another quote. It bothered her to be
thought of poorly. She wanted to be light. Perhaps this
explained the parties, the crystalline laughter, the well croffed hair,
the rehearsed smile. She thought that men such as her
father could be stern, and men could be cold like Virgil,
(35:38):
but women need to be liked or they'd be in trouble.
A woman who is not light as a bitch, and
a bitch can hardly do anything. All avenues are close
to her.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yeah right, yeah, but she she definitely had like an
inner war of She was very strong willed, so she
felt this, tried to do this, tried to into this,
all of these customs and expectations around her, but in
the end was ultimately like, no.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
I need to see my cousin.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
You're not listening to me, Like got fed up. But
I did think that that was interesting. And here's another quote.
Then you won't help me. You're afraid of them. Oh
and here I am without a friend in the world,
she said, clutching her purse and standing up slowly, her
lip quivering dramatically. Men always panicked when she did that,
afraid she'd cry. Men were always so afraid of tears,
(36:31):
of having a hysterical woman on their hands.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
I just thought that was funny. She's clearly learned the game.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
You're right, well, the woman hysterical woman has been had
been used again when they were trying to when she
was trying to talk about how do I get my
cousin AULI here, I think we're just too hysterically.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Yeah, yeah, And I thought that was a really I
liked that twist where she has that moment of like,
maybe Catalina is perfectly same and there's something wrong in
the house.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
Right, there is something wrong here.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yeah, I really really liked that. Yeah, just to note again,
I thought know Amy was a badass. If it's not clear,
I really liked her a lot. There was a lot
(37:27):
of stuff that we've talked about before in horror of
not believing women, dismissing women, gosslining women. Here's a quote
I want you to go know, Amy Virgil says, she's
been asking for you. She here being Catalina. Besides, I
think this is a matter that maybe best handled by
a woman. It might turn out that this is nothing
but exaggerations and marital trouble. It's not as if your
cousin hasn't had a tendency towards the melodramatic. It might
(37:49):
be employed for attention. In that case, Why would Catalina
is marital troubles or her melodrama concern us, she asked,
Though she didn't think it was fair that her fatherly
old Catalina melodramatic. She'd lost both of her parents at
a young age, one could expect a certain amount of
turmoil after that. So this is early in the book
where knowing Me and her father are talking about whether
(38:10):
or not knowing Me should go visit Catalina. And I
thought this was interesting where she's sort of immediately like
defensive of Catalina, like she's, oh, no, I agree, something's
going on here. I don't think she's being melodramatic, like
maybe I don't want to deal with it, but she
does become very productive of Catalina. She's a big defender
(38:31):
of Catalina. She won't leave her behind. So I did
like really seeing that where she was not ever like,
oh I think she has lost her mind or oh
I think she.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Was always always thinking, oh I remember how she was.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
This does not match with how I remember her, and
I'm not going to just dismiss her. So I really
liked that, especially like the doctor. So the Doyles have
a doctor that they use who turns out to he
kind of like influenced by the fungus as well, and
he's so dismissive of Catalina and of no Amy.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
He's he's a part of the family, Yes he is, but.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
I feel like they kind of like don't treat him
that way, but yes he is.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
No, yeah, he's like he's a descendant of them, so
therefore he creeps close to them.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Yes, and he's incredibly dismissive. And you also see Virgil
laughing at Noami's suggestion of the psychiatrist, which was also
racist because yes, again this was that whole thread through
line with the Doyle family of like, oh, the vocals
could not possibly have like a therapist, that would be ridiculous.
(39:43):
And then like when you see the blurring of dreams
and reality and the gaslighting, because they knew what was
going on. They knew what was happening to know, Amy
Catalina went through the same thing. I don't think we
said it, but Catalina tried to get away too, and
just playing on like oh, you're sleepwalking again, or maybe
(40:03):
something's wrong with you, Oh maybe your stressed, like turning
it on her.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
They also blamed her for catalina seizure, which had happened before,
and they, you know, did not relay that part at all.
They're like, wait, you knew this, and you're trying to
pretend like I did this on purpose, and then you
said it was op opioids and yeah, that was none
of that that doesn't you are every bit as the
gas lighter of the entirety of the thing, and they
(40:29):
bade her feel so guilty that she felt guilty and
therefore was like I almost killed my cousin.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
They were very very effective at cas slighting, especially with
the dreams, because they would kind of try to get
her to admit to the dream and kind of succumb
to the dream, and when she wouldn't, they would be like, oh, no,
it was just a dream, even though she had a
real sense that it wasn't and she was right, but
they would just be like, oh, no, you walked into
(40:58):
my room. What There was also the idea which we
talked about before, of no Ami building off of the
work women have done the past. So she was able
to hear these other women like Ruth and later Agnes
and hear like what they went through, and they would
talk to her and try to give her advice as
the story progresses, and then no Ami is sort of
(41:19):
able to take that advice and use.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
It for them.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
And yes, as we said, feeding off a woman's pain,
because that's sort of what this whole thing was about, literally, yeah, yeah,
including eating children, yeah yeah, And then there was a
lot of weaponizing of sexuality, especially against na Amy from
what we see, a lot of using her desires against
(41:46):
her because she is which may have been planted, yes,
very much influenced by the fungus. But she was somebody
who likes, she likes dating, and she liked being with men.
If I'm remembering quickly, she had never actually had sex
because she was too worried about the reputation, what they
would say about her.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
But she did like like that aspect, she.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
Flirted, but then also she would lose interest after a
couple of days.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
But Virgil in particular, you see him manipulating and dehumanizing her,
her harassing her, trying to make her feel certain ways.
Here's a quote another pretty Girl for his collection, which
is something that was said about Howard, I believe about Miami,
but kind of this idea of like, oh she's pretty,
(42:37):
let's bring her.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
In, which yeah, because that's the whole Like if Francis
had been possessed by Howard, that would have made her him, yeah,
which was that intent. And then Virgil soon on talks
about how he was going to take her for himself essentially,
and then when Frances came to her rescue essentially or defense.
Speaker 4 (42:57):
He was that we can share her.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Oh. I was like, oh yeah, no angry, no, no, yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Just talking about her, Yeah, like she's an object. This
gross nasty. There was a lot of stuff about family
in here. We've already talked about a lot of it,
but yeah, I would recommend reading it for more because
it's sort of hard to break down. But I mean, essentially,
you've got this fungus family and the family and the
(43:23):
drama within and uh sort of the tears within of ideology.
And then you've got, as I said, know, Ami and
Catalina annoying me, really not giving up on on Catalina.
And then yes, there's a lot of stuff about eugenics
and racism, the superior inferior ideas, natural selection, immortality, there's incest,
(43:49):
good blood versus bad blood. There's wanting to use Catalina
no Ami for different sush heart of your blood, the
whole idea of uh no Ami and Francis speaking in
Spanish because they never bothered to learn Spanish, as.
Speaker 4 (44:04):
In fact, it was almost forbidden yah, and that.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Is forbidden the house.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
There's a lot of imagery around the snake eating its tail,
so like it's just a circle of this creature eating itself,
which is sort of what is going on here with
trying to keep this bloodline going. And it's all of
this is rooted in sexism, misogyny, racism, and colonialism, this
(44:31):
family and their immortality.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Yes, and they should be noted that they obviously the villains,
and this is the Englishman coming to Mexico to take
advantage of the silver mines which they've always made their
money in. Yes, that is bigger than a metaphor beally
more obvious.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
I think so. And then I wanted to end on
the horror because this book is really very good, like
getting under your skin. It's really creepy. I really really
enjoyed it, so I just want to include this quote
to close it out, so you kind of get a
taste of what's going on here. Next to Miami, the
(45:14):
wall had started to quiver, beating to the same rhythm
as a golden woman beneath her. The floorboards pulsed to
a heart alive and knowing the golden filaments that had
emerged together with the mushrooms, covered the wall like a
netting and continued to grow. She noticed then that the
woman's dress was not made of place, but was instead
woven with the same filaments. The woman raised a gloved
(45:34):
hand and pointed at Knowaimi. She opened her mouth, but
having no mouth, since her face was a golden blur,
no words came out. Noami had not felt scared, not
until now, but this the woman attempting to speak. It
made her indescribably afraid, a fear that traveled down her
spine to the soles of her feet, forcing Noami to
step back and press her hands against her lips. She
(45:57):
had no lips, and when she tried to take another
step back, she realized that her feet had fused to
the ground. The golden woman reached forward, reached toward her,
and held Noimi's face between her hands. The woman made
a noise like the crunching of leaves, like the dripping
of water onto a pond, like the buzzing of insects,
and the pitch black darkness, and Noimi wished to press
her hands against her ears, but she had no hands anymore.
(46:20):
Nimi opened her eyes, drenched in sweat. For a minute,
she didn't remember where she was, and then she recalled.
She had been invited to high place. She reached for
the glass of water she'd left it by the bedside
and almost knocked it down. She gulped down the whole
glass and then turned her head. The room was in shadows,
no light, golden or otherwise dotted the wall surface. Nevertheless,
(46:40):
she had an impulse to rise and run her hands
against the wall, as if to make sure there was
nothing strange lurking behind the wallpaper.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Ooh, I love it. I really really enjoyed it.
Speaker 4 (46:54):
It was very good.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Yes, highly recommend great Halloween read.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
Great all the time read uh to be honest, and
it's got a lot of going on that we didn't
even talk about.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
So yeah, check it out.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Uh if you're if you're interested and you haven't already,
And as always, we're looking for those recommendations for our
next book club. You can send those to us at
our email, which is Stephanie your mom Stuff at iHeartMedia
dot com. You can find us on Twitter at mom
Stuff podcast or on Instagram at Stuff I Ever told You.
Thanks as always to our super producer Chris do No,
thank you, and thanks to you for listening Stuff I
(47:33):
Never Told You. Perspection of I Heart Radio for more
podcasts from I Heart Radio check out that you Heart,
Are you Apple podcasts or if you listen to your
favorite shows
Hey, this is Annie, and welcome to Stefan Never told
you a production of iHeartRadio. So for today's classic, we're
bringing one back that I really hesitated to bring back
because it's really new in terms of when we bring
(00:25):
back classics. But I loved this book, and we are
in Hispanic Heritage month and we are in the time
where I'm wanting to devour all things creepy, and I
just yeah, I really really enjoyed this book and it
(00:45):
fits all of the criteria. As far as I know,
the show isn't out yet. I did a brief Google
search before this and I didn't see it, so that's
still that's still on the horizon. But if you miss
this the first fir time, if you haven't read this book,
really recommend it and please enjoy this classic episode. Hey,
(01:11):
this is Annie and Samantha. I'm not good with Stephan
Never told you protection of iHeartRadio. And today we have
a Halloween.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Edition of a book Club. Ooh, I'm very excited about this.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
But before we get into it, I just have a
question out of curiosity to Samantha. When you read books,
do you picture like actors are people that you know visually?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
When you read or hear like a character's description.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
No, I have a vague, ghost like picture of them,
and does have a generic picture of what they look like,
but they're they're never of someone specific.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
I've thought about this before because when things turned into movies,
are they I'm like, oh, that is not who I pictured,
But I can't tell you exactly because it's not I
go by what they say, but it's not ever of
a person that I know.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, you know, that's really interesting because lately we've seen
kind of a spate of people creating programs that are like,
this is what the character would really look like based
on the description.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I always have, like an actor or somebody.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
I have, I have a clear picture in my head,
and I just feel like that this book was very
descriptive and very easy for me to kind of put like, oh,
it's this, so it's this, so it's this, and I
just it really painted a picture.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
In my head for me.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Okay, who did you picture?
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Well, I could tell you, but it would I would
have to look up all the actors' names, because as
you know, I'm not good with actors names.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
That's fair, But I could do it.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I could do it, and I think it's part of
that is also just the cover art can influence that.
I've seen some stuff from the show. They're they're shooting
a show about this for Hulu, so some of that
can influence it. I remember, like when Harry Potter came out,
I had such a strong.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Like in my brain, who everybody looked like? That?
Speaker 1 (03:17):
When the movies came out, I kind of almost had
like a breakdown is too strong of a word, but
it was like a war in my brain of like
who do they actually look like? And they sort of
all kind of came together and created a composition of both,
which is really interesting. But I can still remember, at
(03:37):
least for a lot of the big characters what they
looked like in my head versus what who.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Was actually cast.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
So I just always find that interesting when people tell
me like, oh, I always thought this character would like
look like this person or this person or this person.
And listeners, if you have any thoughts or experiences about that,
please let let us know, because I really am interested
in it. But today we have to issue a spoiler
alert because we are going to spoil the heck of
(04:05):
this recent book because we're talking about Silvia Monino Gusse's
twenty twenty novel Mexican Gothics. So it's pretty recent and
I really enjoyed it. If you don't want to be spoiled,
leave now, go read it.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
It's a pretty quick reread and then come back and
then come back. And it was very, very successful.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
It was critically acclaimed, and yes, is now being made
into a show for Hulu.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
A content warning.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
We are discussing a little bit of eugenics, suicidality, general grossness, death.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Murder, cannibalism.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
We're not getting too much into any of thatens llucinogens.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yes, that is true.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
It's so funny sometimes when we put the like content
warnings together and like this is making it sound so
much worse it's going to be.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
But I just don't want to miss.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Anything, right, But yeah, all those topics are on the table.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
If that gives you a taste for what this book
is about.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
And yeah, it does have influences of Jane Austen and
Emily Bronte, which I wanted to talk with you about,
right because before we recorded this, Samantha, one of the
reasons I was like, I think we should do this
one was because I know you like Gothic, and I've
read did it kind of had some stuff to do
with like Jane Austen Emily Bronte, So I was like,
I think Samantha will like this one. I'm interested in it.
(05:25):
And you said before like you got that vibe right.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Right immediately, like I was like, oh, is this supposed
to be a retailing of Weathering Heights because it's kind
of that all ominous bit with and it's true with
like the head of the household haunting the entire home
type of thing. So yeah, I was like, Okay, this
is definitely that. And then they actually make mention of
the authors and I was like, there, it is perfect.
(05:49):
I wouldn't say Jane Austen necessarily, because Jane Austin was
not in Horror in any way whatsoever or the Darkness,
so I don't think that would be true of it.
But the Bronte sisters for sure, Mary Shelley maybe even
which sounds like Katerina loved those authors as well, but
you know that's further down the road. But yeah, I
(06:12):
was immediately the style of it, the way that it
sets up the characters, boy, that it sets up the
romance very ominous you know something's going down. You know,
she's walking and thinking everything's fine, and they're like, oh,
nothing's okay, and.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
It's a trap. Like that's the entirety of the.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Thing, And much like the Bronte Sisters, the home has
a huge part in being part of the darkness.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, it's very like I said, the author does a
great job of painting a picture because immediately you can
see like this fog and they're going up this hill
and there's this old mansion there, and there's just something
off about it. Like the atmosphere was excellently done. And
it did remind me of the Bronte Sisters of things
(06:58):
I've read from them.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
I know, so they enjoyed it. I enjoyed it very much.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Oh I did too. I really enjoyed it. I was
telling everybody about it and like what are you talking about?
Like you got to read it?
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Yeah, and it really draws you in. At least that
was my experience. It was kind of immediately like who
I want to know?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
What's going on?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
It painted these really vivid and often unsettling or disturbing images,
and yeah, much of it does take place in this
decaying mansion that is shrouded by fuck.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
So the environment is a big piece of it.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
It is very atmospheric and very excellent building tension because
you're like, oh, something's wrong. Something's wrong. I don't know
what it is, and something's off. Just all these little things.
You're like, oh, all right, so let's get into the platte.
The story takes place in nineteen fifties Mexico and follows
(07:49):
Noami Taboada, a young, beautiful, clever, stubborn, witty social light
who dates for fun is studying anthropology. Kind of gives
that vibe of someone who's like trying a lot of things,
but is really into anthropology at this current juncture. After
receiving a bizarre letter from her cousin Katalina, claiming that
(08:10):
her English husband, a Virgil Doyle, is poisoning her, Noami
leaves Mexico City for the Doyle home, which is called
High Place and it's located in the mountains outside of
a small town called El Trionfo And Miami does this
at the behest of her father. Her father is like,
you're so stubborn, You're so determined. I know you can
(08:31):
get to the bottom of this. Something is wrong.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Well you please go and look into this.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
And I really want to read the letter that they
receive from Catalina that starts this whole thing, because I
think it gives a really good vibe of like the
writing and what's going on. Okay, he is trying to
poison me. The house is sick with rot, stinks of decay,
brims with every single evil and cruel sentiment. I have
tried to hold onto my wits to keep this foulness away,
(08:58):
but I cannot, and I find myself losing track of
time and thoughts. Please please, They are cruel and unkind,
and they will not let me go. I bar my door,
but still they come. They whisper at nights, and I
am so afraid of these restless dead, these ghost, fleshless things.
The snake eating its tail, the foul ground beneath our feet,
(09:19):
the false faces and false tongues, the web upon which
the spider walks, making the strings vibrate. I am Catalina,
Catalina Taboada, Catalina, Kata Kata, come out to play. I
miss Noemi. I pray I'll see you again. You must
come for me, know, Ami, you have to save me.
I cannot save myself as much as I wish to,
(09:40):
I am bound threads like iron through my mind and
my skin, and it's there in the walls. It does
not release its hold on me. I must ask you
to spring me free, cut it from me, Stop them now,
for God's sake.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
Oo too.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
And now, knowing the end, I'm like, oh she.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Was saying, she's saying it, yeah, all of it. So
Nimi is transported to the High Place by Francis Doyle,
and the road is treacherous and misty, and upon arrival,
she's immediately unnerved and annoyed by the strict rules of
the house, largely imparted to her by Francis's mother, Florence.
She's not allowed to visit her cousin without a chaperone.
(10:23):
There's no speaking at dinner, no smoking, which, by the way,
Nimi smokes. Yes, she's one of those cool girls that
like the way you picture it, they describe it. She's
one of those cool girls and things like that. Florence
clearly does not want her to be there, and the
house itself isn't welcoming either, dark and decaying with patches
of black mold. Also, they are very behind in technology,
(10:47):
uses lamps, oils, oil lamps and candles.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
There's no radio, there's no TV.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Everything is a little dark and they like it that way,
just so you know. And yes, it's the kine with
patches of black molds every where. Even the wine is
clothing and almost rotten, too sweet over the top. The
head of the house, Howard Doyle, is old and ill
and inappropriate. Miami is informed that Catalina is suffering from tuberculosis.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
But she is.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Unconvinced. And yeah, by the way, Francis is someone important
and they are. She tries to flirt with him at
the very beginning.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
She does. She does, and you can tell he's like, oh, yeah, this.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Is He's not been around many women.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
So once Miami is permitted to see Catalina, she begs
Miami to get her a tincture from a woman in
town named Marta Duval and by tricking the family because
they're pretty sure, they're like, you can't go it's too
high to get up here, you can't go down. So
Miami tricks the family and is able to get a
ride into town and to walk around unhindered, and she
goes to talk to Marta, who tells her that the
(11:56):
family is cursed, and that one of the Doyle, Ruth,
killed several of the family members, shooting Howard before taking
her own life.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Howard survived.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
In another instance of Francis' father, Richard, was found dead
in a ditch near the home. Noami then goes to
visit the local doctor, asking him to come to high
place to give a second opinion on Catalina, and the
doctor is really reluctant because he's like, Oh, I'm not welcome.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
They don't want me up there.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
And Howard himself has made recent racist comments about how
none of the locals are competent, but he ultimately agrees
the local doctor agrees to come and give his opinion.
And let's step back a bit and talk about Howard
and the Doyles at large, because all right, So, during
the eighteen hundreds, British companies and families flooded into Mexico
(12:42):
in order to take advantage of local resources. The Doyles
in this book are one such family, and the house
is near a once profitable silver mine that was later flooded.
There's this cemetery on the property with some of the
bodies of people who died working in the mine. They
are to reopen the mind, Noami learns, and she suspects
(13:04):
that they intend to somehow make Catalina docile in order
to use her money without her complaints. Howard frequently speaks
of quote superior and inferior types and of survival of
the fittest, and keeps books on the subject around. Something
that angers Naimi, which in turn seems to amuse Howard.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
So the local doctor confirms that it fits tuberculosis. It's
unlike any he has ever seen. And by the way,
when Miami was in a town and meets with Marta,
is too because Catalina sends her to her as the healer.
She's a healer and gets a tinture to Catalina. Finally,
but oh dear, it calls to have a seizure and
(13:47):
makes the Doyles even stricter about when Naomi can visit her.
Of course, they all play the victim kind of gas
lighter hmm. Naomi starts having disturbing dreams and visions of
a gold woman, a buzzing coming from the walls, the
mold moving, pulsating and almost calling to her, and her
dreams that seem real, unpleasant ones that seems to almost
drug her to having sex with Virgil and wakes up
(14:07):
to after she hears place of open her eyes. She
starts sleepwalking, something she hasn't done since she was a child,
and feels that she's losing her grip on reality early,
similar to what happened to her cousin, and she begins
to suspect that Catalina may not be ill and the
house is haunted or at least coming for them.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Meanwhile, as all of this is happening, know Ami and
Francis do grow closer, Sincenomi has to smoke outside. They
walk around the misty grounds together, and know Ami learns
that Francis, who is definitely the black sheep of the
family studies mushrooms and insects, is well read and interesting.
Know Ami, who has enjoyed many relationships in the past
(14:52):
and continues to enjoy like it's kind of funny how
often she'll be sort of like, she's not my usual type.
She feels herself growing closer to him. However, he is
still somewhat distant and warns her that speaking Spanish is
not allowed in the home and that they can hear
you that she should leave. He's clearly like very on
(15:14):
edge and worried about her. This is underscored by other
comments from the family like smoking, Hurt says just things
like that it's very sketchy.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
So growing increasingly frustrated and disturbed, too afraid to sleep,
and feeling cut off. After Martha disappears, Noimi decides to
send a letter to her father requesting he's send help
or at least trying to go out and get help somehow,
trying to leave the place.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
She's done. She's done with this place. She needs to
get out.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
But the night before her departure, the Doyles informed her
they'll have one final dinner together and that she must
see Howard before she leaves.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
To NOI me, he's horror.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Howard is covered in boils, one of his legs bloated,
and he is clearly on desk door and by the way,
he's like she had imagined she was going to come
into him being tucked in as sickly. No, no, he's
naked and showing off all his boots, including the boils,
and the smell of his body is terrible, and she
tries to flee, but Virgil and Florence forced her to
hit her knees in front of him, and he kisses
(16:17):
her really grows by the way, making her swallow with
the black liquid from his mouth that stains his teeth,
that gets literally oozing out of his face, and she
feels incredibly ill and passes out, having visions h No.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
When she wakes, Francis is in her room watching over her,
and she is understandingly furious. Francis explains that Howard is
actually hundreds of years old. He at one time he
was quite ill and determined to find a cure for
his illness, so he found locals in this area who
were using a strain of mushroom to heal themselves. Howard
(16:52):
exploited this and formed a symbiotic relationship with the mushroom
and part after eating the infant of a local woman
who had used the mushroom, obviously against her will. Many
others who partook died, but Howard believed his survival meant
he could use his medicinal knowledge to make himself a mortal,
(17:14):
and to accomplish this requires a number of things. So firstly,
the house is infused with the mushroom.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
The air inside is full of spores.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
It heals the family in there and makes their lives
last longer. It is what has been calling ton Ami,
dulling her senses, making her want to give into Virgil's
advances and wants her to become part of the family. Secondly,
the exploitation of the working class in order to fund
(17:45):
their internal lives is something that they have to do
to achieve this immortality.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Thirdly, they need children.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Howard didn't want to quote dirty the bloodline, so he
decided to have children with his sisters. Lately, though, the
women of the family have not been producing as many children,
and Howard, to Florence's chagrin, believes introducing new blood like
Catalina and Noemi, who are combatible with the fungus, is
the key to their survival. The visions Noemi has been
(18:15):
experiencing are what they call the gloom, which is essentially
a hive mind or like that kind of spiderweb thing
that Catalina described in the letter at the top. Since
the mycilium is connected and bodies can serve as mulch
for it, it has absorbed the memories of those before it,
and that means that Howard can transfer himself into a
(18:35):
younger body. It also kind of explains like the haunting
it's sort of like these memories that you experience in
the Gloom. Francis tells Noami in Spanish that he will
help her gather supplies because again they don't understand Spanish,
and that the tincture disrupts the effects of the spores
but must be used sparingly. No amis hesitant to trust him,
(19:00):
also understandable, but agrees on the condition that he helped
rescue Catalina too, and later she also decides he should
leave with them. Francis informs her that the fungus keeps
them from leaving, that that is what happened to his father,
Richard when he tried to escape.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
That's how he ended up in that ditch.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
She may be able to leave, but he is part
of the family as and much longer exposed to this fungus,
will not be able to But Miami does not give
up and communicates with the women before her in the Gloom,
like through her dreams, to try to find a solution
to this. Frances gives her the tincture and a razor
(19:38):
blade after she asks for a weapon. Noaimi attempts an escape,
but only makes it a few meters outside before the
house and the fungus makes it feel like she can't breathe.
Virgil carries her inside and humiliates and harasses her. She
is told she must marry Francis, who in turn instructs
her to play along. That their chance of escape will
be when Howard's body dies and he transfers his consciousness
(20:02):
into Virgil. That Ruth weakened all of them when she
killed some of the family and attempted to kill Howard.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Right, yeah, Ruth is one of the daughters who hated
the process.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
I guess all the women kind of hated it, except
for Florence, correct from what I can gather, Like we
find out Agnes later on.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
I couldn't get a real read on Agnes.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I couldn't tell if she like willingly sacrificed herself or
unly sacrificed.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yah are all important, But yes, the women were not happy.
Ruth was one of them that was very not happy
and tried to get out. Try to kill everybody did
not work. So all these things happened. Ruth was the voice,
by the way that said open your eyes. One of
the things that that was interesting. The pair Francis and
(20:51):
uh Nymi are married and they prepared to escape. However,
Francis is detained and Virgil reveals he drugged them and
makes clear he desires to make annoy Ami his Noami
fights him off, knocks him off, taking a sip of
some of the attentionure, and retrieving the razor. So all
this happened while Virgil was pretty much attacking and accosting her.
(21:14):
Catalina has them too, and they go to find Frances
only to discover his mother is coercing him to giving
his body to Howard, so it was always France's and
not Virgil.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Oh dear the plan.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Miami tries to stop him, and Florence attacks her, who
was really strong at this point, leading to Francis killing
her row. Catalina stabs Howard in the eye because she
comes awake and alive and starts stabbing the hell out
of him, and the trio flees into the mines and
tunnels as the house shudders around them, and they feel
the pain because Howard's in pain and Francis is struggling
(21:48):
under the influence of the fungus as well.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
It's bad, Yeah, it's not good.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
So they find Agnes's grave and Agnes is one of
the sisters, one of Howard's sisters that he that he married, Yes,
that he married. They find her grave and no Ami
realizes that she was sacrificed, buried alive so that the
fungus could have a human mind. And that's something Howard
like determined that it needed, was this human mind. And
(22:17):
she exists as a living, waking nightmare, a body to
grow spores out of so Howard can control his family
and others in their orbit.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
No Amy tells her to open her eyes.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
She tells Agnes to open her eyes, which, yeah, just
as she has heard in her visions. Virgil reveals that
he always intended for Howard to die and now wants
to truly take his place, because yeah, Virgil has just appeared,
and he wants to use Catalina and know Ami for
childreness like Howard. Catalina says Virgil in the eye, and
(22:50):
no Amy sets the body of Agnes on fire. All
the mushrooms start to burn and the trio scapes down
the mountain. They are cared for by the local doctor,
though Francis takes several days to wake. When he does,
he reveals he has a dream of high place and
better condition than ever, that he is locked in and
unable to escape its opulence. They also kind of question,
(23:10):
like if you burn mushrooms a lot of times mushrooms
grow better out of the ashes, which also gave me pokes.
It's like, oh but anyway, uh no. Amy tells him
it was just a dream and promises to take into
Mexico City where they can be together.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
The end, it was ominous ending.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
I was like, okay, so I must ask, do you
know anything about Hillo series?
Speaker 2 (23:45):
I don't. I think it's the ten part series, that's all.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
Okay, So it's gonna be a limited series.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Are they going to try to open it up like
Game of Thrones and we're all gonna be disappointed?
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I don't know about that. I don't think, so, okay,
just check it. But it was I mean, it was
definitely to me, it felt like it there was room
for a sequel, and this is the reason rogue.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
So she did leave it open unless if they could
be haunted by this, as if there's going to be
a call for them, because there's also like the whole
legends that a lot of the miners were burned alive
on purpose or purposely killed let to die so they
could be fertilizer.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
For those yeah mulch mulch they.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Were called yeah yeah, Okay, well just get into the themes.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Then, let's get into the themes.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
One of the big themes, yes, is using women and
using the working class. So I wanted to start with
this quote. No Amy, like any good socialite, shopped at
the Palatio Derio, painted her lips with Elizabeth Arden lipstick,
owned a couple of very fine furs, spoke English with
remarkable ease courtesy of the nuns at the Monticeta, a
(24:52):
private school, of course, and was expected to devote her
time to the twin pursuits of leisure and husband hunting. Therefore,
to her, any pleasant activity must also involve the acquisition
of a spouse. That is, she should never have fun
for the sake of having fun, but only as a
way to obtain a husband, which would have been fine
and well if father had actually liked Hugo. But Hugo
(25:14):
is a mere junior architect, and Miami was expected to
aspire higher. So I want to include that because this
is right in the beginning. Hugo is this guy she's
attracted to. She's hanging out with this costume party in
the beginning, And I feel like this code is a
really good example of a lot of things we talked
(25:34):
about in persuasion. But you know this idea, you have
to get a husband, that's your whole goal. You have
to get a good husband of good standing. But this
was sort of this whole book was sort of the
like horror of that. This whole book was, Oh, Catalina
did that, and now she's trapped in this night like
living nightmare where she's basically just a just a shell
(26:00):
of her past self and someone to use for money
so that they can open their mind again.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
And they're trying to do that to know am me
as well, and.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Also just someone used to create, pro create to get children.
This is like this whole statement of like, oh, you've
got to find a good husband, that's your whole point
in life. This book was like whoa, Okay, but look
at the horror right.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Well, also, you have to remember the reason she came. Yes,
she wanted to save Catalina, but the bargain was that
her father was going to let her go to the
university to continue to study in theothology. And the only
way she could do this was by doing this favor
and her mother was very disappointed and the fact that
she wanted to go and said the line that is,
(26:47):
you're supposed to be a debutante to wife and anything
in between was a distraction from the true purpose.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
So like, that's.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
The entirety, Like even though yes, they're a little more normal,
I guess is the word, but like this at this point,
that's the whole purpose of women in Mexico. And she
was talking about the fact in the nineteen fifties Mexican
women were not even allowed to vote, so of course
this made sense. This is their livelihoods. But yeah, the
tragedy of it is holy crap. Look at what happens.
(27:17):
We become a who old trap and we become sacrificial to.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
The patriarch, which is that conversation?
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Ye, right, And this is the line girls were supposed
to follow a simple life cycle from debutante to wife
to study further when we mean to delay the cycle
to remain a chrysalis inside a cocoon. And yeah, exactly,
that's that line. She was not cool either way to
being just herself.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah, yeah, And I think.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
There was a part of me that when I was
reading it, like you never really get to see Catalina
before she's induced to this state.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
But the way that annoying me to describes her as
she was a very vibrant woman, kind very kind like
she was a very just.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Lively interesting person. And now you just see her and
she's in bed and kind of like a very shell
of herself. And no Amy, I felt was a very
I thought interesting hero. And I thought she was like, Oh,
she's funny, she's witty, she's charming, she's got these interest
(28:30):
and faults and all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
And I liked her a lot.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
And then to see her like, again, I could be
reading way too deep into this, but to see her
kind of pulled into this marriage she did not want,
which is what happened to a lot of women. And
to hear you're going to be used for children and
that's it. To see her reduced to that was like, oh,
(28:52):
this is kind of what we were asking of women
a lot at this time in marriages. Was like, you
make yourself smaller, you reduce yourself, and you are secondary
to whatever.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
The man, the head of the household needs.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah, here's another quote. Mister vascal Esos makes it very
clear that the unattractive will not procreate. Beauty attracts beauty
and begets beauty. It is a means of selection. You see,
I am offering you a compliment. So this is by
Howard and he's being all creepy, which is often all
(29:32):
the time, but that was throughout the book too. Is
kind of really reducing people to genetics. That's where this
whole idea of like superior and inferior and genetics comes in.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
But it's just really grows. It's just really gross or.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
To hear them talk that way, and to know that
this guy has lived a hundred years and is really
looking at it as just like, how can I prolong
my life in the life of my family?
Speaker 2 (30:02):
How can you play a role in this right?
Speaker 3 (30:06):
And the thing is like, I don't think it's just
even his family, it's just his life. So he just
needs to use the children for him to continue to live.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Which I thought was interesting too because I feel like
that's you know, we've talked about this before, but that
idea of your children being more a representative view than
actually something like you're you're more concerned about how they
represent you than themselves, And that was definitely shining through
(30:36):
in this in this book, because yeah, he.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
You know, I just realized I thought Fences couldn't be
his next in line because that wasn't his kid. Yes,
it was his grandkid, but not his kid. I thought
it had to be his kid.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I think they thought so, but they were so desperate.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Oh so they because they didn't. Why didn't he use
Virgil just.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
For because he liked Virgil better so.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
Vert, but that was his actual kid.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yes, but he wanted Virgil to like, he actually wanted
him to live and have his own life because he
was the quote better one. So Francis was more expendable.
So I'm going to try it with him, and if
it doesn't work, then I'm sure they would have gone
for Virgil, which is why, probably why Virgil was like, no,
I'm going to kill this guy.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Because yeah, if I remember correctly, it was never like
it had to be his kid or something.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
I think they really tried to keep it very in
the blood, and this was there like, oh god, it's
not working.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
We have to branch out because we're dying off desperate.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
That was a sidetrack, yes, yes, but here's another quote
to underline this point. A woman's function is to preserve
the family line, and I think that that was throughout, Yes,
this idea, we need the women to have the children.
But after that, like that's all they're they're all, they're good.
(32:01):
And you see this suffering of Agnes especially which again,
as I said, I wasn't clear, and maybe it could
because I read this in one sitting because I was like, oooh,
I wasn't clear. I felt like Agnes did agree to
sacrifice herself.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
She was like, Okay, I'll do it.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
But then after because essentially involved bearing her alive, right
and so in that she was in that process, she
was like, Okay, maybe I didn't want this or maybe
I was wrong, but throm that the spores grow and
the mycilium grows, and so it's like her living nightmare.
(32:38):
But it's the pain of this one woman who was
keeping this whole thing alive.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
And she's, yeah, she's having this nightmare.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
It's really pretty disturbing and descriptive of when you finally
realize what's going on and how it describes her as
just this like trapped woman who is just in this
nightmare and that's her whole existence, and like to have
that woman's pain at the suffering of all of.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
This, at the heart of all of this I think is.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Pretty telling about how we treat women. It's something we've
talked about a lot in our horror things about how
we'll just use women's pain for all kinds of things.
In this case, Yeah, and then something else is definitely
the suffering and expendability in the minds of this family
(33:37):
of the working class, because the servants are seen as
kind of like test cases for this fungus. Are either
they are husk like they are literally servants that are
living in the house that are just kind of hollowed
out and controlled by this fungus, and that is what
(33:58):
kind of props them up up. You got the miners, yeah,
who who are buried, So just using people in that
cool way and throwing them away. And then there was
a lot of stuff, especially in the beginning, because I
would say this book took a turn in the middle
about what you thought where it was going. Maybe you
(34:20):
knew it was ominous, but you weren't quite sure. But
there was a whole there's a whole lot of stuff
I noticed about women navigating men and social situations. So
here's a quote I wouldn't say demanding exactly concern, more
like she replied taking care to smile to show him
this was really a small matter that might be easily resolved,
and it must have worked for he nodded, And I
(34:42):
just remember reading that being like, so, yeah, this is
still we still talk about doing this stuff as women
of like you got to put on your smile, You
got to manage this man's anger and his expectations and whatever.
And you know, at first when she first gets there,
like you know, something's off, but she's still trying to
be and still trying to get what she wants by
(35:03):
managing these people. And you just see so many instances
of her having to deal with like real nonsense and
having this fear of what will happen if she doesn't placate.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Them, right, She definitely has to control her temper ayes. Yeah,
And then there's another quote. It bothered her to be
thought of poorly. She wanted to be light. Perhaps this
explained the parties, the crystalline laughter, the well croffed hair,
the rehearsed smile. She thought that men such as her
father could be stern, and men could be cold like Virgil,
(35:38):
but women need to be liked or they'd be in trouble.
A woman who is not light as a bitch, and
a bitch can hardly do anything. All avenues are close
to her.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yeah right, yeah, but she she definitely had like an
inner war of She was very strong willed, so she
felt this, tried to do this, tried to into this,
all of these customs and expectations around her, but in
the end was ultimately like, no.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
I need to see my cousin.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
You're not listening to me, Like got fed up. But
I did think that that was interesting. And here's another quote.
Then you won't help me. You're afraid of them. Oh
and here I am without a friend in the world,
she said, clutching her purse and standing up slowly, her
lip quivering dramatically. Men always panicked when she did that,
afraid she'd cry. Men were always so afraid of tears,
(36:31):
of having a hysterical woman on their hands.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
I just thought that was funny. She's clearly learned the game.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
You're right, well, the woman hysterical woman has been had
been used again when they were trying to when she
was trying to talk about how do I get my
cousin AULI here, I think we're just too hysterically.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Yeah, yeah, And I thought that was a really I
liked that twist where she has that moment of like,
maybe Catalina is perfectly same and there's something wrong in
the house.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
Right, there is something wrong here.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yeah, I really really liked that. Yeah, just to note again,
I thought know Amy was a badass. If it's not clear,
I really liked her a lot. There was a lot
(37:27):
of stuff that we've talked about before in horror of
not believing women, dismissing women, gosslining women. Here's a quote
I want you to go know, Amy Virgil says, she's
been asking for you. She here being Catalina. Besides, I
think this is a matter that maybe best handled by
a woman. It might turn out that this is nothing
but exaggerations and marital trouble. It's not as if your
cousin hasn't had a tendency towards the melodramatic. It might
(37:49):
be employed for attention. In that case, Why would Catalina
is marital troubles or her melodrama concern us, she asked,
Though she didn't think it was fair that her fatherly
old Catalina melodramatic. She'd lost both of her parents at
a young age, one could expect a certain amount of
turmoil after that. So this is early in the book
where knowing Me and her father are talking about whether
(38:10):
or not knowing Me should go visit Catalina. And I
thought this was interesting where she's sort of immediately like
defensive of Catalina, like she's, oh, no, I agree, something's
going on here. I don't think she's being melodramatic, like
maybe I don't want to deal with it, but she
does become very productive of Catalina. She's a big defender
(38:31):
of Catalina. She won't leave her behind. So I did
like really seeing that where she was not ever like,
oh I think she has lost her mind or oh
I think she.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Was always always thinking, oh I remember how she was.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
This does not match with how I remember her, and
I'm not going to just dismiss her. So I really
liked that, especially like the doctor. So the Doyles have
a doctor that they use who turns out to he
kind of like influenced by the fungus as well, and
he's so dismissive of Catalina and of no Amy.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
He's he's a part of the family, Yes he is, but.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
I feel like they kind of like don't treat him
that way, but yes he is.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
No, yeah, he's like he's a descendant of them, so
therefore he creeps close to them.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Yes, and he's incredibly dismissive. And you also see Virgil
laughing at Noami's suggestion of the psychiatrist, which was also
racist because yes, again this was that whole thread through
line with the Doyle family of like, oh, the vocals
could not possibly have like a therapist, that would be ridiculous.
(39:43):
And then like when you see the blurring of dreams
and reality and the gaslighting, because they knew what was
going on. They knew what was happening to know, Amy
Catalina went through the same thing. I don't think we
said it, but Catalina tried to get away too, and
just playing on like oh, you're sleepwalking again, or maybe
(40:03):
something's wrong with you, Oh maybe your stressed, like turning
it on her.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
They also blamed her for catalina seizure, which had happened before,
and they, you know, did not relay that part at all.
They're like, wait, you knew this, and you're trying to
pretend like I did this on purpose, and then you
said it was op opioids and yeah, that was none
of that that doesn't you are every bit as the
gas lighter of the entirety of the thing, and they
(40:29):
bade her feel so guilty that she felt guilty and
therefore was like I almost killed my cousin.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
They were very very effective at cas slighting, especially with
the dreams, because they would kind of try to get
her to admit to the dream and kind of succumb
to the dream, and when she wouldn't, they would be like, oh, no,
it was just a dream, even though she had a
real sense that it wasn't and she was right, but
they would just be like, oh, no, you walked into
(40:58):
my room. What There was also the idea which we
talked about before, of no Ami building off of the
work women have done the past. So she was able
to hear these other women like Ruth and later Agnes
and hear like what they went through, and they would
talk to her and try to give her advice as
the story progresses, and then no Ami is sort of
(41:19):
able to take that advice and use.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
It for them.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
And yes, as we said, feeding off a woman's pain,
because that's sort of what this whole thing was about, literally, yeah, yeah,
including eating children, yeah yeah, And then there was a
lot of weaponizing of sexuality, especially against na Amy from
what we see, a lot of using her desires against
(41:46):
her because she is which may have been planted, yes,
very much influenced by the fungus. But she was somebody
who likes, she likes dating, and she liked being with men.
If I'm remembering quickly, she had never actually had sex
because she was too worried about the reputation, what they
would say about her.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
But she did like like that aspect, she.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
Flirted, but then also she would lose interest after a
couple of days.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
But Virgil in particular, you see him manipulating and dehumanizing her,
her harassing her, trying to make her feel certain ways.
Here's a quote another pretty Girl for his collection, which
is something that was said about Howard, I believe about Miami,
but kind of this idea of like, oh she's pretty,
(42:37):
let's bring her.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
In, which yeah, because that's the whole Like if Francis
had been possessed by Howard, that would have made her him, yeah,
which was that intent. And then Virgil soon on talks
about how he was going to take her for himself essentially,
and then when Frances came to her rescue essentially or defense.
Speaker 4 (42:57):
He was that we can share her.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Oh. I was like, oh yeah, no angry, no, no, yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Just talking about her, Yeah, like she's an object. This
gross nasty. There was a lot of stuff about family
in here. We've already talked about a lot of it,
but yeah, I would recommend reading it for more because
it's sort of hard to break down. But I mean, essentially,
you've got this fungus family and the family and the
(43:23):
drama within and uh sort of the tears within of ideology.
And then you've got, as I said, know, Ami and
Catalina annoying me, really not giving up on on Catalina.
And then yes, there's a lot of stuff about eugenics
and racism, the superior inferior ideas, natural selection, immortality, there's incest,
(43:49):
good blood versus bad blood. There's wanting to use Catalina
no Ami for different sush heart of your blood, the
whole idea of uh no Ami and Francis speaking in
Spanish because they never bothered to learn Spanish, as.
Speaker 4 (44:04):
In fact, it was almost forbidden yah, and that.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Is forbidden the house.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
There's a lot of imagery around the snake eating its tail,
so like it's just a circle of this creature eating itself,
which is sort of what is going on here with
trying to keep this bloodline going. And it's all of
this is rooted in sexism, misogyny, racism, and colonialism, this
(44:31):
family and their immortality.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Yes, and they should be noted that they obviously the villains,
and this is the Englishman coming to Mexico to take
advantage of the silver mines which they've always made their
money in. Yes, that is bigger than a metaphor beally
more obvious.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
I think so. And then I wanted to end on
the horror because this book is really very good, like
getting under your skin. It's really creepy. I really really
enjoyed it, so I just want to include this quote
to close it out, so you kind of get a
taste of what's going on here. Next to Miami, the
(45:14):
wall had started to quiver, beating to the same rhythm
as a golden woman beneath her. The floorboards pulsed to
a heart alive and knowing the golden filaments that had
emerged together with the mushrooms, covered the wall like a
netting and continued to grow. She noticed then that the
woman's dress was not made of place, but was instead
woven with the same filaments. The woman raised a gloved
(45:34):
hand and pointed at Knowaimi. She opened her mouth, but
having no mouth, since her face was a golden blur,
no words came out. Noami had not felt scared, not
until now, but this the woman attempting to speak. It
made her indescribably afraid, a fear that traveled down her
spine to the soles of her feet, forcing Noami to
step back and press her hands against her lips. She
(45:57):
had no lips, and when she tried to take another
step back, she realized that her feet had fused to
the ground. The golden woman reached forward, reached toward her,
and held Noimi's face between her hands. The woman made
a noise like the crunching of leaves, like the dripping
of water onto a pond, like the buzzing of insects,
and the pitch black darkness, and Noimi wished to press
her hands against her ears, but she had no hands anymore.
(46:20):
Nimi opened her eyes, drenched in sweat. For a minute,
she didn't remember where she was, and then she recalled.
She had been invited to high place. She reached for
the glass of water she'd left it by the bedside
and almost knocked it down. She gulped down the whole
glass and then turned her head. The room was in shadows,
no light, golden or otherwise dotted the wall surface. Nevertheless,
(46:40):
she had an impulse to rise and run her hands
against the wall, as if to make sure there was
nothing strange lurking behind the wallpaper.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Ooh, I love it. I really really enjoyed it.
Speaker 4 (46:54):
It was very good.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Yes, highly recommend great Halloween read.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
Great all the time read uh to be honest, and
it's got a lot of going on that we didn't
even talk about.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
So yeah, check it out.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Uh if you're if you're interested and you haven't already,
And as always, we're looking for those recommendations for our
next book club. You can send those to us at
our email, which is Stephanie your mom Stuff at iHeartMedia
dot com. You can find us on Twitter at mom
Stuff podcast or on Instagram at Stuff I Ever told You.
Thanks as always to our super producer Chris do No,
thank you, and thanks to you for listening Stuff I
(47:33):
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