Episode 282: Mexican Gothic (with Isabel Cañas)
/We’re joined by author Isabel Cañas to talk about her debut novel, The Hacienda, and all things postcolonial gothic! And along the way we chat about Latinx Mirkwood elves, the haunted house book boom, and holding the door open for others.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of murder, storms, rejection, isolation, colorism, racism, and colonization.
Guest
Isabel Cañas is a Mexican-American speculative fiction writer. After having lived in Mexico, Scotland, Egypt, and Turkey, among other places, she has settled (for now) in New York City, where she works on her PhD dissertation in medieval Islamic literature and writes fiction inspired by her research and her heritage. You can order her book, The Hacienda, now!
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Julia recommends Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki.
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
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Transcript
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia.
AMANDA: And this is Episode 282, where we are so excited to be joined by Isabel Cañas. Isabel, welcome.
ISABEL: Thank you so much for having me.
JULIA: It is our absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for being here. And we're so excited to talk about your new book, The Hacienda. To kind of get us started, Isabel, would you mind giving us a little like, plot teaser so that our audience can go and pick up the book, and they're like, “Yes, excellent!”
ISABEL: Absolutely. So to set the vibes for this book, it's usually pitched as Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca meets Mexican Gothic. Which means, it's very much like a traditional Gothic set in Mexico. So our story begins in 1823, when our protagonist, Beatriz, has lost money and position in the political turmoil that followed the Mexican War of Independence from Spain, which ended in 1821. And in order to, you know, pick herself up and make a life for her and her mother, she decides to marry this handsome mysterious widower who has an estate in the countryside, Hacienda San Isidro. So she marries him, heads out there, discovers that it is immensely haunted. No one will help her and she doesn't know what to do. So she heads into town because she thinks, well, what this place needs is a good old-fashioned exorcism. So let me get in touch with the local priests, who want nothing to do with her and her, you know, mad women hysteria vibe. Until there's one young priest called Pandre Andrés, who decides to help her and he turns out to have a lot of secrets of his own. So that's where our story really takes off. It's full of ghosts. It's got witchcraft, and maybe a murder or two.
JULIA: Ooh! I mean, I think that checks so many boxes for our audience. So if they're not already grabbing the book, or pre-ordering it, then I don't know what they're doing, honestly.
ISABEL: Oh, I, I hope they do, I hope they do. And I hope also if they're into audiobooks, I hope they pick up the audiobook because I got to listen. Oh my God, this is the coolest thing. As a debut author, I'm still learning the ropes here. And one thing I got to do is my publisher sent me auditions from different actors for the audiobook, I lost my marbles. The actors are incredible! And I'm so excited for the audiobook in particular.
JULIA: Oh, it's gonna be so much fun. I'm already going to like, pre-select it on my Libby app, so I can make sure my--
ISABEL: Yehey!
JULIA: --my library picks it up. Ahh! So great. I would love to kind of get to know you a little bit better as--
ISABEL: Yeah.
JULIA: --a writer before we get into like the themes and stuff of The Hacienda. Did you always want to be a storyteller? Or was there like, a moment where you knew that this is what you wanted to be doing?
ISABEL: I don't think there was ever a conscious decision. I come from a, a family of storytellers. Definitely oral storytellers like the way my grandpa spins the yarn and laughs at his own jokes along the way. Is, it's something that was always around me when I was a kid. My mom is a writer. She was a journalist, and I was homeschooled for a long time by her when I was a kid. And one thing that she really hammered home, not math skills, to be clear, I can barely manage basic arithmetic things to the homeschooling. But she really encouraged the writing that I would do for fun, as well as all of the reading that I wanted to do. So my sister wants to describe the experience of being homeschooled as being allowed to run barefoot through books, which I think is adorable. It's basically--
AMANDA: Aww!
ISABEL: --what I did. But I also wrote a ton of fanfic, I was really into Lord of the Rings fanfic. And so I would write some like self insert fanfic, where, like, you know, I struggled as a kid to find and until very recently. I did struggle to find like representation of Latinas people in genre literature in particular. So I was like, do you know what, actually Legolas in the Mirkwood Elf, Mirkwood Elves are all Latinos, obviously, because they're brunettes, it checks out. So I would like happily write my little fanfics when I was 12, and I never stopped. So that's kind of where it picked up. I did not write a lot of fiction when I was in college, I wrote a lot of poetry and I journaled a lot because the drama in my life was extremely dramatic. And I needed to work through that. But I started writing fantasy fiction when I was 22. And I finished my first novel when I was 26? Question mark, yes, 26 in the first year of my Ph.D. program. It's what definitely kept me sane throughout seven years of academia.
JULIA: And your Ph.D., you're studying Medieval Islamic Literature, right?
ISABEL: Yeah, it's like really out of the left field. Because people are like, so are you Turkish? I'm like, No, I'm Mexican, it makes it even more confusing.
JULIA: I was gonna ask, how'd you get into that?
ISABEL: Oh, it's a long story. Uhm, so my Ph.D. is in Ottoman and Turkish studies and I focus on 14th-century literature written in Anatolia in Turkish. Kind of Turkish that's called Old Anatolian Turkish, which sounds very serious. It's basically the Turkish equivalent of Chaucer's English. So a modern Turkish speaker reading it would be like a not only is this an Arabic script, what is going on? And I got into it because when I was homeschooled one of the things that interested me was the history of the modern Middle East. Because when I was a, I think in my early teens, there was like a war going on in Lebanon. I think the- the July war 2015 was going on. And as a kid, I had been super interested in ancient Middle Eastern history, it was super into Ancient Egypt. That sort of thing did a lot of reading, when I was little, I thought, oh, I want to be an archaeologist. Therefore, I must learn Arabic because if I want to go to where the digs are, people speak Arabic. And I just became like, fixated on that and studied Arabic in undergrad and for my masters. So that kind of kicked off a life. I lived in Egypt in 2011 and 2012. I lived in Jordan in 2014. And I've been in Turkey on and off for language programs and research throughout, God, for ages, for like the last 10 years.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: That's incredibly cool.
ISABEL: It's so fun. I highly recommend visiting the Middle East like Turkey, especially like the food's amazing. The people are amazing. Like the history is incredible, chef's kiss.
JULIA: Incredible. I've been to Ephesus. That's the only part of Turkey I've ever been to.
ISABEL: So cool.
JULIA: But it was beautiful. Yeah.
ISABEL: So cool. Yeah, the history is incredible. Even if you're like geeky about ancient Greeks, a lot of the sites that you can visit, like Ephesus are in Turkey. I, I visited Troy. That was cool. It's kind of like--
JULIA: Very cool.
ISABEL: --a lot of rocks in the ground. Glad I didn't go with Archaeology. Not my thing.
JULIA: I was going to say before I got really into your Ph.D. You're on the right podcast if you started your kind of writing career with fan fiction because both of us were big fan fiction people.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: It's like Lord of the Rings. Yes. Excellent
ISABEL: Amen. Yes, yes. Yes. I love this. What were your preferred modes of fan fiction?
JULIA: Oh, a, a certain magic series that we don't talk about anymore.
ISABEL: Yup, I can relate.
JULIA: And Warrior Cats?
ISABEL: Oh my God. I love it. I want my little sister to come on this podcast and talk about that with you
AMANDA: She's welcome.
ISABEL: Yes.
AMANDA: Yes. And I did a lot of like, not self insert exactly. But kind of like making my own add-ons to like The Raven and others sort of like Maudlin, you know, poetry from the 19th century.
ISABEL: Fingers snaps.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: We all--
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: --went through our Poe phase, and weren’t they great.
AMANDA: They were, they were. I'm glad I was too young to get tattoos. And I was really into like the raven, and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and things like that. Instead--
ISABEL: Same.
AMANDA: --I just got to like, recite it, you know, emotionally with Julia, like at the beach in the wintertime.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: And that, that did pretty well!
ISABEL: I love you guys already.
AMANDA: Uhh, thank you!
JULIA: Like I said, you're on the right podcast.
ISABEL: Yes.
JULIA: So I, I have a question. And this is more of like a, I guess, like genre definition thing? Do you consider The Hacienda a horror novel? Or a suspense novel? Or a gothic novel?
ISABEL: So when I was writing it, I thought, horror. That is a tough sell for mainstream fiction, I think because it turns a lot of people off, understandably. Looking back on it now, I think it does cross a lot of genre boundaries. I think it can be pitched as historical fiction. It can be pitched as speculative fiction, it has witchcraft. You could call it historical fantasy. You can call it horror. You can call it suspense. I don't think it's a thriller. I frankly, don't think it's like clever enough in its twist to be a thriller. But it definitely has some like, it plays a lot with dread and atmosphere in the same way a thriller might. So as I was writing it, I thought that horror, and I tried not, I honestly didn't think too intensely about it. I kind of just wrote the story I wanted to tell. And that I was, that was literally like possessing me to tell.
JULIA: Yeah.
ISABEL: So I kind of just flowed with it, it is horror. And when I talk about it, I talk about it as horror. You know, we have ghosts, like I said, elements of dread and atmosphere, I play with them quite a lot in this book and those are two pillars of the horror genre. But when we talk about marketing copy, maybe we don't use the big H word all the time, for every audience.
JULIA: And I mean genre, it can be really useful in some ways, and really limiting in other ways. So like, I totally understand being like, it's, it is hard, but it's also this, this and this, you know what I mean?
ISABEL: Exactly?
JULIA: And I guess that kind of leads into my next question, which is like, what drew you to horror as a genre? Like, was that one of your favorites growing up? And like, what is it about horror that kind of drew you into writing it?
ISABEL: So when I was younger, I, and now, I very much consider myself first and foremost a fantasy writer. But when I was younger, I was always drawn to darker fantasy. I went through my little goth phase when I was 14. Did I outgrow it? Question mark, I don't know.
JULIA: I did see in an interview that you refer to yourself as a recovered goth child.
ISABEL: Yes. Yes. Well, you can see like, the marks of my dark eyeliner under my eyes. Yeah, I've definitely not fully recovered because I was always drawn to, I guess, darker fantasy for me a seminal text as a 13, 14 year old was Holly Black's type, which has a lot of dark themes.
AMANDA: Oh yeah. Come on Tithe!
ISABEL: Yes.
AMANDA: Like yes.
ISABEL: Yes.
AMANDA: We've grown up into Tithe adult.
ISABEL: Oh my God. Her adult debut comes out the same day as my novel and when I saw that my lo- and hit the floor. I died.
AMANDA: Gasp!
ISABEL: She is incredible! I've seen her speak in person at different Cons. I just think she's, it's, it's dangerous to have like heroes. I don't worship the ground she--
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: --walks on she's--
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: --a human being, she's a writer. But honestly, God, she wrote some good stuff. She writes--
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: --some really good stuff. And I'm so excited for the Book of Night. So, I don't think I consciously decided to write horror when I was a kid. I was also really into the Mediator series by Meg Cabot, which is about like, a ghost actually a Mexican American ghost, or a Mexican guy who dies in the 19th century and then becomes friends with and the love interest of a girl who has the ability to speak to ghosts in the early 21st century. You see, it's very weird that I decided to write this book when I wrote it. Because the last few books that I wrote leading up to that. While one of them did have darker, fantastical elements, they were both straight fantasy. I wrote two young adult manuscripts that were YA fantasy. My agent and I went out on submission with them and both died, deaths of, you know, varying degrees of pathetic.
JULIA: Aww!
ISABEL: I wouldn't actually like looking back I learned a lot from them. I learned a lot about the submission process and how publishing works from them. But they were really disappointing. I felt especially the book that I wrote right before The Hacienda was very much me deciding to dig into, for the first time, my Mexican identity and put someone like me at the forefront of my books. Instead of just like, oh, a little side character. Oh, a little reference. So I think I was quite sensitive about that book, understandably. Putting it out in submission and having it received mixed reviews. I was like, oh, this is sad and frustrating.
AMANDA: My heart beating on a platter, oozing. Yeah.
ISABEL: Literally, literally. Here's my little- and it's funny because this book is, that book was a portal fantasy about a young Mexican American girl who ends up in the world of the Aztec gods. And so, you know, part on platter, you know? Appropriate analogy there.
AMANDA: Thank you.
ISABEL: But that book had some dark elements. See also human sacrifice and darkish imagery. It was very, it, it's, it had a lot of like, you could see the undercurrents of like, hello, yes, I'm a Tithe adult reading this book. But I did a revise and resubmit on that manuscript for one publisher and received a rejection on it. A really heartbreaking rejection when I was in the middle of my honeymoon in 2019. I was in Mexico City, which is where I lived as a kid. And I remember like, crying in public and my husband like patting my back and being super supportive and giving like the cinnamon roll pep talks he's so good at. And he said, you know, you gotta get back on the horse. Like, what project are you going to pivot to next? You have that other fantasy project, or you have that haunted house book that you came up with, like a few weeks ago that doesn't really have much going on, but you could do it. And I was like, do you know what? Yeah! I'm gonna pivot! I need to do something really different. I'm gonna write that haunted house book. So it was like, yes, I, I played with a lot of darker, more goth, and gothic themes in my fiction, before writing The Hacienda. But it was definitely my first novel-like foray into the horror genre.
AMANDA: I love that this was the equivalent of like a breakup haircut for you. Where you’re–
ISABEL: 100%.
AMANDA: –sniffling, sniffling like about to eat a churro? And you're like, okay, fine. Like, I'll, I'll, I'll instead write some more.
ISABEL: Exactly, exactly. It was definitely like sobbing in public kind of decision-making situation. It was also fortuitous that I was in Mexico City because that place for me has a lot of memories. I was really young when I lived there. I was like five, six years old, very impressionable. And I was there in October, which is one of my favorite times of the year. Because these incredible rain storms hit the city like every afternoon without fail. And there's like thunder, there's lightning, there's like sheets of rain coming down. I absolutely loved that growing up. And so they're definitely like, incredible thunderstorms in my novel. And actually, it was one night, I was lying awake in bed, I think at the very end of my honeymoon. And like, there are only a few days left, listening to a thunderstorm, like tire itself out when I first like heard the voice of the book and heard the first chapter in my head. Which is an experience that I've never had before. And I like snatched my phone off the nightstand and started like, typing as fast as I could. Because I was like, this is it. Oh my god, I have the voice. Because for me, finding the voice for a book is one of the things that's most important for me to actually start the writing process. And so it was magical. I loved it.
JULIA: That's awesome. And also thank you for kind of talking about the rejection process in publishing. Because a lot of people don't talk about that. They're like, Oh, yeah, it took me a while to get this published, but they don't like kind of be like, yeah, I had kind of like two books die on the vine, but this one made it. So I really appreciate that.
ISABEL: Of course, I think it's, it is really difficult to talk about because obviously writing books, while it is a business is also a very personal and vulnerable act. And so when you get rejected, it's very difficult not to take it personally. And so I think when you're speaking to strangers, you're like, oh, yeah, I'm very happy to gloss over that bumpy period. But for me, I think it's really important to remember and to hold close because it made me the writer I am and it also makes me appreciate how far I've come and the opportunities that I'm being given with this book right now. I'm getting a push from my publisher that I really, really appreciate. And I adore my team at Berkeley. And so you know, this is not a given. I know it's not a given. So yeah, let's talk about rejection all day long. I've had the therapy, I can chat about it now.
JULIA: I feel that, I feel bad hard. This is awesome. Why don't we take a quick break and then we will get back to the, the themes of The Hacienda.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
JULIA: Hey, this is Julia. We'll get back to the party in just a second. But I want to check in with you. Do you have a drink? Do you need a refill? How are you on chips? I am so excited to see that. Oh, a new patron just walked through the door, it's Abby. Thank you Abby for joining our lustrous party-loving patrons. Including our Supporting Producer level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Froody Chick, Hannah, Jack Marie, Jane, Jaybaybay, Jessica Kinser, Jessica Stewart, Kneazlekins, Lily, Little Vomit Spiders Running Around, Megan Moon, Phil Fresh, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, Scott, and Zazi. And of course, our Legend level patrons. Arianna, Audra, Bex, Clara, Iron Havoc, Morgan, Mother of Vikings, Sarah, & Bea Me Up Scotty. And you can also hang out with the rest of our incredible patrons by going to patreon.com/spiritspodcast. And you know, giving a little bit of money for each episode so that we can continue to make this show and make it our jobs. Still wild every time I think about that. Thank you. I also love recommending to you our conspirators, a new book. I love books. I read a lot lately. And it's like really nice to be able to share something with all of you. Not just the stories that we tell on the episodes but also like books that I'm enjoying. So this week, I want to recommend to you Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki. And goodness, it deals with the devil, it has aliens, it has incredible descriptions of food, it has violin playing. Honestly, I went into it not knowing what to expect and I've been nothing but delighted. So check that out, that is Light from Uncommon Stars. I also want you to check out some of the other shows from Multitude. Including NEXT STOP, which is an audio sitcom is a show that explores the turbulent time in your mid-to-late 20s. where everyone is changing around you and you're kind of worried that you might not catch up. There are 10 episodes in the first season. It follows three roommates' trials through work relationships, friendships, and more. And can watch them all grow as a unit no matter what life throws at them. It was written by our game master, Eric Silver. Is directed and edited by our good friend, Brandon. Amanda, executive produced it and you know, I might have done some assistant directing and some casting, who can say? So season one is out right now. And you can just search for NEXT STOP in your podcast app or go to nextstopshow.com. I'm also here to tell you about some of our sponsors, including DoorDash. Listen, I've mentioned a couple of times before, I just moved to a new neighborhood. And the best way of figuring out new restaurants to go and visit, especially when the weather's not so great is by opening up my DoorDash app and looking to see what restaurants are in the area that deliver. I love finding new restaurants, it is like, one of my favorite things in the world. 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JULIA: So Isabel, we love to ask people who come on the show, what's your favorite cocktail?
ISABEL: So I won't say a specific cocktail. But lately I've really really been loving anything that's very mezcal-forward. I love mezcal very much.
JULIA: Again, you're talking to the right people here. Amanda and I are big mezcal fans. I love anything that's like a smoky, like margarita.
ISABEL: Yes!
JULIA: Amanda loves a mezcal and beer combo. I'm like, I'm all about it.
ISABEL: That sounds amazing. Yes.
AMANDA: Yeah. There's a beer shot combo of [21:52] and mezcal that I am obsessed with. And the studio, actually Multitude office is like catty corner from ilegal mezcal. Which is like a producer in Greenpoint. I have never been and they have a tasting room. So I'm just going to say, Isabel, next time.
ISABEL: Can we go?
AMANDA: When you North Brooklyn, please come and we can host you and we can try Ilegal Mezcal, together.
ISABEL: I would love that. I will love--
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: --actually, I went to a mezcal tasting when I was in Mexico City on my honeymoon. And the young woman who was leading the tasting was deeply knowledgeable about not just mezcals and the mezcals we were tasting. But his, the historical production of different maguey based liquors. So Pulque, which plays obviously a huge role in my novel, because Hacienda San Isidro produces Pulque, mezcal, and a little bit about tequila. But it was honestly, it was that mezcal tasting they like planted the seed for, ahh, because I was thinking like, historically, I knew I wanted my book to have like classic Gothic trappings, like--
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: --the big, creaky house. The mysterious husband, a young woman who is of a certain class who's trying to scramble upwards. And so I thought, well, after the end of this 11-year civil war in Mexico, who would have money? People who make alcohol, so it was my research, my training as a historian really, and my love of mezcal really influenced that big pillar of the book. So mezcal has a special place in my heart.
AMANDA: Hell yes! Well, the offer is completely open anytime. The- the weather's getting nice. I would love to do that. But also, I think like Julia, to your point earlier about kind of talking through the rejection and the realities, there's something I give as sort of career advice and wish that I heard earlier in my life as well or like nothing else, but your life up to this point could have produced this book. That you know, not only has been successful for you, but hopefully, it will touch the hearts of lots of other readers. It is the job and training that isn't necessarily author. It's the, you know, love of things that might have made you feel weird as a Tithe teen.
ISABEL: Hell, yes.
AMANDA: It's, you know, the- the particular interests that really activate your heart. That all comes together for the Venn diagram that is you there is no like, right path, there's no deviation, like, it's just more ingredients that- that you mix up into your own cocktail.
ISABEL: Absolutely, absolutely. And another major ingredient in the cocktail of this book was the pandemic. So when you talk about themes, I can absolutely dive into that as well.
AMANDA: Yeah, no, talk about it now. Let's talk about it now.
ISABEL: All right, I wrote the first draft of this book or the first 40,000 words. It's a 96,000-ish word long book. I wrote the first 40k in like three weeks in November of 2019.
AMANDA: Oh my God.
ISABEL: Put it aside because I needed to go back to my university to teach, my mom read it and I don't know if I'm allowed to curse on this podcast.
JULIA: Oh, you can.
AMANDA: Yes.
ISABEL: Isabel, what the fuck? You know, like--
AMANDA: I promise I'm okay.
ISABEL: Yeah, she picked it up and she couldn't stop reading and my mom is like an editor. You know, she's my toughest critic. She was when I was homeschooled, she was always the one with like, the red pen of doom who had come from my essays and mark them like crazy. And so I knew when she was like too absorbed to stop reading and mark notes in the margins. Like I knew I had something.
AMANDA: Wow.
ISABEL: That was, you know, had potential. And then the pandemic hit in March or I guess, it hit earlier and other parts of the world but for Are the United States it was really like early March. Two years ago that the shit really hit the fan and my anxiety, I don't know about you guys, but my anxiety was through the roof. I had just moved to Brooklyn.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
ISABEL: So I finished teaching in Chicago on like March 15, or 16th, I flew to Brooklyn. To my tiny little studio that I shared with my husband with whom I had been in a 5-year long-distance relationship and so it was our first place together.
JULIA: Wow!
AMANDA: It'll be great, you said, we'll be able to go to the office and then come home and enjoy the city together, you said
ISABEL: Precisely, precisely! We'll live in downtown Brooklyn, we said. So husband can ride his bike across the bridge to the office, we said this will save us so much money. But we were living in this itsy bitsy box. And my anxiety was obviously going crazy. My husband was on calls all day long. So I got these sound-canceling headphones that I'm pointing to right now. I thought I was too anxious to write her. And I reached for the things that had brought me so much comfort and escapism in the past, which was fantasy novels. And I consumed an enormous amount of fiction in a very short period of time. And two of my go twos from that period that I recommend always are Tasha series, Empire of Sand, and Ron Lavash, which are excellent books. But like I needed, like a more intense hit of escapism and fantasy actually wasn't giving it to me. And the horror I wanted to read, I would pick up and put down like deeply disappointed. Because like, if we look at horror as a genre, like now there are lots of really diverse voices. I love Stephen Graham Jones, who scares the shit out of me, I love Silvia Moreno-Garcia, but Mexican Gothic hadn't come out yet. I love the Castro like there's some great voices. But I didn't really know about them, or they hadn't had books come out that I was interested in. And so I thought, Ah, god dammit, Do I really have to go back and write this book? And so I finished it in two weeks.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: Wow!
ISABEL: It was like I was reading like 6000 words a day. It absolutely consumed me and had lots of surprises. But I think it actually became the book that it is because of that, like very early pandemic experience that we all, we all went through. We were all trapped in houses. And we were afraid of things that we did not understand and things we could not control. And I think looking back on this book, I, I have always told myself, I'll never write a book about the pandemic, no way, miss me with that shit. But like this book is about the pandemic, like, yeah, so--
JULIA: I mean, if those themes aren't the most Gothic shit,--
ISABEL: Yes!
JULIA: --you know?
ISABEL: Yes, yes. And there are horror that I think a lot of people relate to horror because a lot of people fear the unknown. I think ghosts tap into that fear of the unknown.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: A fear of mortality. But I also think that like, now, we have this very universal experience of being trapped in houses, you know, quote me on this later, but I predict a haunted house Renaissance. After this period,
JULIA: I feel like you're already starting to see it. I feel like I've seen an uptick in haunted house books over the past like six months to a year, I would say like since like last October.
ISABEL: Absolutely, absolutely. And there's like this Gothic resurgence that--
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: --that puts diverse voices at the forefront that I'm absolutely living for actually, I just a book announcement this morning for one set in South Africa. And I was like, yes!
AMANDA: Yesss!
ISABEL: Yes! Yes!
JULIA: I love that. Actually, that brings a great like transition into my next question. So I saw the Publishers Weekly starred review, which is very exciting. Congratulations.
ISABEL: Thank you, thank you.
JULIA: And it refer to the book as post-colonial Gothic? Which I think like if anyone likes gothic literature, that would immediately draw them to the book. But like, I'm curious as to what you think of that descriptor and that kind of not that like the door wasn't open before, but opening even wider for like non-white Eurocentric writers to start writing Gothic.
ISABEL: Yes, speaking of doors open, I owe an enormous debt to Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Because she kicked that door open, that door wide open. And I am so so grateful to all of the work that she's done. I'm a huge admirer of her short fiction as well as her novels. But when it comes to the term post-colonial Gothic, I embrace it when we talk about post-colonial literature. Like, I read Gayatri Spivak in undergrad, and like, I'm not going to get into the academic side of things. Because now I am leaving the Ivory tower behind and I am a storyteller first and foremost. But I set this book at a specific crossroads in Mexican history for a reason. Because when we look at Mexican history, and you see this in Mexican Gothic as well, there are incredibly dark themes of racism, oppression, colorism, obviously, colonization, that don't get picked up in US depictions of what Mexico is in the media, whether it's Narcos in TV series or in books. What I wanted to do was look at a specific moment in time where Mexico was an independent state. But the structures that had been put in place during its period as a colony of Spain, the socio-economic differences that existed between white Peninsulades or Creoles and indigenous people in Mestizos, we're still very much in place. And so I really wanted to mess with that as an author, because I think there's a lot of tension inherent in that. And as a person whose family is mestizo, and who experienced in both Mexico and in the United States, the feeling of being neither here nor there. Not enough this, not enough that, I wanted to explore that in my fiction. But yeah, I really embrace to sum up a very long-winded answer, I definitely embrace the term post-colonial. And I think correctly identifies the themes that I explore in my novel. It correctly identifies the temporal, like the choice I made about when in time to set this novel. There have been a few reviews that call it like, oh, after the Mexican Revolution, dadadadada, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. The Mexican revolution happened in the 20th century. This is different guys. The Mexican War of Independence, I think it's a great term. I hope there continues to be a quote, new wave of postcolonial Gothics coming after me and I will hold that door open for anyone. Because the Gothic as a genre is ab– so rich for exploring questions of class questions of wealth, questions of race, colorism, socioeconomic disparities. Because when we think about like the classic Gothic manor in England, like, where did the money come from to build that house? The Americas, and its blood money, frankly/
JULIA: Yeah.
ISABEL: So I think the more diverse voices, we can get to explore that history and overturn the familiar narratives that we know as North American or European readers, the better.
AMANDA: So well put.
ISABEL: Thank you.
JULIA: Yes. So I'll put and I agree, I hope there are more because I love this genre as a whole.
ISABEL: I do too.
JULIA: Kind of digging in a little bit further into the themes of the novel. You mentioned in your description before one of the characters is Padre Andres. So his storyline kind of follows this conflict between the folk beliefs and the traditions that he grew up with. And then the Catholic teachings that he now follows as a priest. So can you talk a little bit more about this? Because I imagine that it very much draws from both the like historical and religious dichotomy in Mexico and also a lot of colonized areas in Central and South America.
ISABEL: Yeah, so I wrote a little bit about this in my author's note to the novel. So if any of your listeners pick up the book, there is more there. And because I am a trained historian, there's also a reading list. Hurray! So Pandre Andreas' belief system as a which is fictional. I will say that upfront. But what I wanted to show in his person was the mix of indigenous and European beliefs that created not just Mexican Catholicism, but also a lot of Mexican folk beliefs> Some that exists in my family today, others that exist in different parts of Mexico and other people's families. I can only speak specifically about Mexico because that's where like, my family experience in my research has led me. So I imagine that there are similar, there are echoes of of this in other parts of Latin America. But when you look at the history of the Catholic Church in Mexico, in the 16th century, in the 17th century, in the 18th century, yes, it has a history of oppression, yes, it has a history of violence. It is also a history of the negotiation of indigenous and Catholic beliefs. Because they were priests who were sent to Mexico from Spain who were like, great, okay, we need to figure out a way to like, convert these people who are very different from us. How are we going to do that? We're going to recast our beliefs in the language in their language in a way. And so there are some books, some academic books that I swear are interesting and not just drive, and I mentioned my author's note, there's one called I think, Nahua and Maya Catholicism, something like that.
AMANDA: Total side note, I love the academic pluralization of nouns that are not usually pluralized. So like Catholicism, I'm just like, sign like into my veins, like, Sign me up. I love it. Yes, it's so good.
ISABEL: I said earlier that in American mainstream media, there's often like a very, I'm paraphrasing myself, there's often a very two-dimensional image of Mexico.
AMANDA: Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a monolithic, that's not here, right? It's a monolith that's like, beneath and in more ways than one and dangerous.
ISABEL: Absolutely. Absolutely. And so one thing I wanted readers to walk away from a book, understanding a little bit of because I don't believe it's my job to be a teacher with my book. It's my book, it's my job to spend to spin a suspenseful yarn and spooky with ghost stories, is the understanding that like Mexico, not just today, but also in the past was extremely diverse, ethnically, linguistically, extremely diverse place. And so Nahua and Maya Catholicisms, plural, we love it! Has to do with the fact that like the Maya in the south, like in the Yucatán, and the Nahua who were based, who we know in popular culture and more as like the Aztecs. Their empire was based around Tenochtitlan, which is now Mexico City, they're extremely culturally distinct. And so, you could call it like a tiny little throwaway line, but one that I really rip my hair out over was there's one scene. So the book is told from two points of view, Beatriz and Andreas. And in one of Andreas' chapters, he's reflecting on a moment he had his grandmother in the past when he was a boy, and he notes that like when he speaks with his grandmother, he speaks what's, we would today call Nawat, but that's an X and M, which means that like it's a name that was given by outsiders to that language but that and I was doing like so much anthropological research about this. Plausibly in the 19th century, a native speaker of this language would call it [35:20] or Mehikano. So he notes that he's speaking this language with his grandmother, and then she switches to Spanish to speak with someone whose native language is an indigenous language that they don't understand or speak [35:31]. So like, it's like this tiny little line, but I'm like, I hope people notice it and recognize that like, there is an incredible mosaic of indigenous languages in Mexico that exists to this day, and that should be represented in literature by many, many voices. So yes.
AMANDA: Totally.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: I think that's also a, an aim of colonialism is to render a before and after that are really distinct and anything, whether it's a you know, an image, a thought, footnote or an author's note that invites people to learn more about the fact that the past was not black and white, two dimensional greyed out a thing that we've completely moved past that, you know, particularly the sort of colonial narrative did not like render everything modern, better, easier the way it is now that people were, you know, smart, multilingual, figuring things out navigating circumstances that they were forced into, probably better than that they were under the regime that wants to make itself seem like the solution to some pre-existing problem.
ISABEL: Exactly. And I think one problem I encountered, you use the word narrative. And I think narrative is so important here because when I was doing my research, like colonialism, erased an enormous amount of knowledge that I simply as a writer of historical fiction, will never have access to. So do I know for certain that indigenous people who lived outside of [36:49] in the state of what is now Hidalgo spoke this indigenous language? No. I had to make a choice, as a writer of fiction, to extrapolate where possible, but be as faithful and as authentic as I could be at the same time, because I don't know, I feel an enormous amount of pressure as a Mexican-American writer who's being given a voice in this publishing world, to have just like, the best whack it authentic represent representation is I can, I can give and also to be as good as I can possibly be. Because people like marginalized writers of color do not always get more than one chance. So I put a lot of pressure on myself to get everything like as historically accurate as I could possibly be. But that is impossible when we look at the lives of people in the past whose lives history has erased. So there are many things about like the kind of food people ate, the kind of clothes they wore, what they believed about one another in the world they lived in, I will never have access to because the historical narrative has erased people who were not of a certain class people whose skin was not a certain color people who did not speak a certain language. So one thing I try to remember as I write historical fiction, Courtney Milan, who is a historical romance writer once tweeted, and I'm paraphrasing this terribly, I need to find that tweet so I can quote it properly. But she said, To paraphrase, the job of historical fiction writer is not to be as like accurate as possible, it's to create something plausible for the historical setting. To a certain extent, people who are writing Regency romances have more sources at their fingertips to craft that plausible experience for the reader, I struggled a little bit more, given the nature of my resources.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: I'm grateful that I can read Spanish, so I could like read a lot of stuff. But you know, I had limitations. And so I use artistic license here and there, especially with as regards to the person of Padre Andres and his background and his family and how he might have viewed the world and how his family might have experienced the world that they lived in
AMANDA: Totally. And that's not a mantle that white writers or European writers writing from the sort of originating site of those colonial violences need often feel that's why Silvia kicked that door up and dingy. And that's why you are you are putting the doorstop under the door to make sure it stays open.
ISABEL: I hope so smashing the button is send the elevator back down, like come join us up here. Please, please, please. Yeah, I think it was very difficult. And I felt a lot of pressure too and I continue to feel a lot of pressure when I talk about this book. And as I write about this book in different essays and stuff. But it is, you're right, it's a burden that not all writers have, I very- gratefully because it means that I have a voice and I have an opportunity to talk about what is important to me and fiction, which is representation because I didn't have that. Like did I like imagine the heroine of time looking like me? Absolutely. Did I have that on paper?
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: No. Did I then write fanfiction? Yes.
AMANDA: Yep.
ISABEL: Yeah.
JULIA: And it's not like Stephen King was writing about like, you know, Mexico City during any time, any period of time. Stephen King?
ISABEL: No, I mean, like God Bless Stephen King, but Pet Sematary? Ick.
JULIA: Yeah.
ISABEL: We have moved past that. Like, please let us leave that behind.
JULIA: Indeed.
ISABEL: Yeah, I think one thing that I love about the title Mexican Gothic is that I think it should open a door to an entire genre.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: I think the genre should be called Mexican Gothic capital G.
JULIA: Hell, yeah.
ISABEL: Because there's so much about, you know, as a little goth kid, one thing I thought to myself was like, there is nothing more goth than being Mexican, you know?
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Amazing.
ISABEL: Especially someone who's like, you know, my grandfather once told me like, the blood of the Aztecs runs in your veins, which is definitely- definitely implausible.
AMANDA: Yeah, you're like, "Grandpa, I'm five and going into a T ball match, but like I will, I will take this mantle!"
JULIA: Hardcore grandpa, thank you.
ISABEL: He is so hardcore. Like I could talk about him for ages. But when I was little, and I was living in Mexico City, like my mom would get us like coloring books about like Mexican history. And a lot of one thing that like modern Mexican nationalism really likes to lionize is like, the Aztec hero, you know, look at these badasses who stood up to the Spanish, you know? And so I had these coloring books of like, Aztec warriors, and I was really into the Aztec gods and their incredible Pantheon, which is like extremely confusing and people switch like gods switch gender back and forth. Like, are they this? Are they that? Do they represent? And like the iconography is incredible. So I was super obsessed with that as like a little kid. So when I was 14, I was like, Yeah, I'm Goth. Yeah, I'm Mexican. It makes perfect sense. Skulls? Yes. You know, the darkness? Yes. I'm very into this.
AMANDA: Statement jewelry? Fuck yeah!
ISABEL: Oh, my God, the jewelry! Love love, love the jewelry. So I feel like yeah, Mexican Gothic, I want it to be a whole genre. I want there to be so many other voices that overturn the stones of like these calcified narratives that North Americans have about Mexico in the past and present.
AMANDA: That's what stories are for.
ISABEL: If any of your listeners are those writers, like hit me up, please email me.
JULIA: Hell yeah. Hell yeah.
AMANDA: They will.
JULIA: So speaking about your childhood, I have one more question before we wrap up and I was reading an interview in which you were talking about how you grew up in a very old home like a 1920s. Home in the Chicago suburbs.
ISABEL: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: And you said it was totally haunted. So I need to know more about that.
ISABEL: Absolutely. Okay. So my family moved, like, every four years when I was growing up. So I only spent like four years in that home I think until I got to start my Ph.D. actually, I think the longest I've ever lived in a home was four years. And so I've lived in a lot of different spaces. And yeah, I'm just gonna say I'm not a superstitious person, but like, No, fuck it. I am a superstitious person when it comes to this, this house, and my aunt. I remember when the interview came out. I sent it to my family and my aunt messaged me back being like that house was totally fucking haunted. And I was like, thank you.
AMANDA: Whooooaaa!
ISABEL: Thank you.
JULIA: Finally, confirmation.
ISABEL: Absolutely. But it was this house. It was in Wilmette. If any of your your listeners are from the Chicago area, or the burbs it was like this old red brick house that was built in the 1920s. When we moved in, it was like, it had this very weird setup where like, it was two different apartments. And so my mom, like did all these renovations and I'm one of five kids. So like we were always running around screaming, we were very, like I'm the quiet one, for example. I can give you an idea of like how loud and charismatic like my siblings are. But when you have like a house full of like screaming kids who are all under the age of 10 like timeouts happen and so my dad's preferred method of timeout was, A.) however old you are, that's how many minutes you are in timeout.
AMANDA: Smart.
ISABEL: So I often had to spend like five or six minutes, seven minutes, eight minutes sitting on the stairs either leading upstairs if I was especially bad, the bottom of the basement stairs.
JULIA: Oh no.
ISABEL: So this basement was partially unfinished. It had this massive furnace like it had these two back storage rooms one that my family use for storage for like my dad skis or whatever. And the other one that was for this, like massive boiler had all these pipes crisscrossing the ceiling.
AMANDA: Oh yeah.
ISABEL: And it was just like, dark, and cobwebby, and it had my last fevers like grill lives. And it was one of those things where I hated being down there alone. And I couldn't put my finger on it. But it just like, I have goosebumps talking about this right now. It just made my hair stand on end like it is now. And it's one of those things where and I've lived in other houses that have had similar, same but different, like similar vibes, but nothing as specific as that help. So when I think about like, when I lived in the UK during my undergrad Master's, I lived in one apartment that also had like, very strange vibes that I hated being in alone, and I hated being in the dark. But that house in particular in Wilmette from the 1920s just had had a personality and that personality was super not happy I was there. Yeah, so when it came time to write this book, I think, as horror writers when we reach for fears that are authentic to us, they show up as authentic on the page.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: And like houses give me the heebie jeebies when I was looking for apartments in Brooklyn when my husband and I were finally ready to move out of our tiny little matchbox in downtown Brooklyn. That was great. But for the time that really didn't leave a lot of space for like sanity. Every time I walked into an apartment. Like I try and be like, it's hard to judge. But there were some that I walked into in Brooklyn Heights back in 2019 When I was first looking for apartments where I was like, No, this has bad vibes. I will not live here. And like, it's one of those things where if I explain it to my husband, he's like, Oh, don't be silly. And I'm like, [disagreeing tone]
AMANDA: Yeah, you have to listen to that.
ISABEL: I'm going to be silly about this. I'm gonna put my foot down. No way, Jose. So yeah, I've lived a lot of houses. I've lived in a lot of old old buildings. I've lived in new buildings. I have weird vibes. Yeah, I have some people in my family who are very spiritual, some people who have had very intense supernatural experiences, and some people who are like me just easily spooked. And I feel validated by them. I love my family.
AMANDA: I think it's really wise to listen to those voices and I totally agree. Like if I walk into an apartment and the vibes are off, like we're out of there. And we haven't talked about this often, Julia, but we might have to dig into this in the future of like, the particular haunted vibes of new buildings, because there's, you know, the old house, the right is like the Gothic stereotype.
ISABEL: Of course.
AMANDA: But there's something about like a cheaply built building in Brooklyn, near the waterfront with the paper thin walls and the radiator that's about to fall off and the bathroom faucet that's connected with like a staple that like the vibes are so far gone, they're in New Jersey, and I'd like I can't live.
ISABEL: Have you just given me my next novel idea?
JULIA: Yeah!
AMANDA: Enjoy.
ISABEL: I'm kidding. I don't know if I can write contemporary.
JULIA: Well, if you do, just like you know, jot us down in the in the credits.
AMANDA: A little author's note, yeah.
JULIA: You know, the little acknowledgments that's fine.
ISABEL: Yeah, exactly. Go into the acknowledgments.
JULIA: Thank you.
AMANDA: Incredible.
JULIA: But that is awesome. Isabel, thank you so much. Would you mind telling people both where they can find you and The Hacienda on the internet.
ISABEL: The Hacienda that will be coming out May 3rd.
AMANDA: That's the day before this episode comes out.
ISABEL: Amazing. It's our guys! Pick it up, get it wherever books are sold? You can find it at Barnes and Noble. You can find it at your favorite indie. You can find it online in ebook and in audiobook form. I'm a big fan of Libro.fm so I'm gonna shout them out. Like I said before the actors who auditioned and whom I chose for this audiobook, our chef kiss, they gave me chills. I hope they give you chills. I can be found online at www.isabelcanas.com. That's I S A B E L C A N A S punto com and I'm not often on Twitter. I haven't updated my Twitter. I like many I was- I was used to be very big on Twitter and absolutely burnt out so I'm afraid I only lurk and post updates but you can find me there at slash is about Kanye to underscore and I'm most often on Instagram at @isabelcanas_, i s a b e l c a n a s and occasionally I dig around on Tik Tok shrug. @isabelcanasauthor. I try to be hip with the kids, you know? They're just so much funnier than me though.
AMANDA: I know but BookTok is a force to be reckoned with.
ISABEL: BookTok. You know, I lay I like bow at their feet. Some of my like I have, you know, like a clutch of favorite BookTokers who I follow and they're just profoundly clever young woman and I adore their content. So [48:04] Carmen is one of my favorite Latinx Bookstagrammers and BookTokers. So check her out if you're into that sort of thing.
JULIA: Awesome.
AMANDA: Looking her up right now. Thank you.
JULIA: And you can find links to all of those in the show notes of this episode and so you can go grab the book right now and give you a follow on on all the social medias.
ISABEL: Yeah, and hit me up like tag me or at me if it gives you nightmares.
AMANDA: Yey!
ISABEL: Because it gave my agent nightmares it gave my older sister nightmares and I just find this delightful. So I apologize in advance but am I really sorry? Shrug. Unclear.
JULIA: Well, whether you are reading the book or getting nightmares remember-
JULIA: Stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
AMANDA: Spirits was created by Amanda McLoughlin, Julia Schifini, and Eric Schneider with music by Kevin MacLeod and visual design by Alison Wakeman.
JULIA: Keep up with all things creepy and cool by following us @spiritspodcast on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. We also have all of our episode transcripts, guest appearances, and merch on our website as well as a forum to send us in your urban legends, and your advice from folklore questions at spiritspodcast.com.
AMANDA: Join our member community on Patreon, patreon.com/spiritspodcast for all kinds of behind-the-scenes goodies. Just $1 gets you access to audio extras with so much more like recipe cards with alcoholic and non-alcoholic for every single episode, director's commentaries, real physical gifts, and more.
JULIA: We are a founding member of Multitude, an independent podcast collective, and production studio. If you like Spirits, you will love the other shows that live on our website at multitude.productions.
AMANDA: Above all else, if you liked what you heard today, please text one friend about us. That's the very best way to help keep us growing.
JULIA: Thanks for listening to Spirits. We'll see you next week.
AMANDA: Bye.
Transcriptionist: KM