Demonic Possession w/ Isabel Cañas
/Isabel Cañas is BACK and here to talk about her new book, The Possession of Alba Díaz. Join us as we talk about the intersection of demonic possession and bodily autonomy, writing capital-R Romance novels, and how Isabel used her historian background to create an immersive Gothic novel.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of death, possession, racism, mental illness, poisoning, colonialism, religious persecution, misogyny, sexual assault, and sexual content.
Guest
Isabel Cañas is a Mexican-American speculative fiction writer. After having lived in Mexico, Scotland, Egypt, Turkey, and New York City, among other places, she has settled in the Pacific Northwest. She holds a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and writes fiction inspired by her research and her heritage. You can pick up her new book, The Possession of Alba Díaz, wherever you buy books.
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
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About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
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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 we are joined, Julia, by our first three-peat guest. This is our first not a Multitude podcaster, just a friend of the show who keeps pumping out books, and we love her, and we want to talk to her about every single thing she ever writes and thinks. It's Isabel Cañas.
ISABEL: Oh, my gosh, you guys. Thank you. I didn't know I was at three-peat. I'm so—
JULIA: Three-peat.
ISABEL: I'm so honored. Thank you so much for having me.
AMANDA: You are so welcome. This is not a joke. Your flask and sticker pack are in the mail, so we are going to be sending you the exclusive, a first of its kind Spirits three-peat guest package.
JULIA: Wow.
ISABEL: Oh, my gosh. I'm thrilled, thrilled, thrilled.
JULIA: Well, listen, if you keep writing incredible books, we're gonna keep having you on the podcast. That's just kind of how it works.
ISABEL: Oh, no. Oh, no
AMANDA: Five-timers club. It's gonna keep happening.
ISABEL: Guess you will just have to keep me around.
JULIA: Yep, seems like it. That's fine with me, because I loved your newest book, The Possession of Alba Diaz. Isabel, tell us a little bit about this book and the plot, and why people should check it out.
ISABEL: Okay. So the possession of Alba Diaz is what it says on the tin. It's about Alba Diaz and how she gets possessed by a demon. But it's about other things as well. It takes place in the 18th century. So rewind back in history to 1700s in Zacatecas, which is the silver mining capital of Mexico at the time. A plague strikes the city, and Alba and her fiancé, Carlos, retreat to his family's mine up in the mountains, along with Carlos' cousin, an alchemist named Elias and a shit hits the fan, pretty quickly, honestly. For a gothic slow burn, which is more my style, things pick— start to pick up when we enter the, "Is it haunted silver mine and the creepy, creepy house that they stay in up in the mountains?" And scary things start to happen, sleepwalking, disembodied voices, hallucinating, maybe unclear. It gets creepy real fast.
JULIA: Listen, if you are a fan of Gothic literature in general and in particular, like Gothic that is not English or, you know, European in that sense. One, all of Isabel's writing is fantastic. Check that out. The Hacienda is also kind of in a similar vein, but I am just so excited Gothic literature is probably, like my favorite type of horror in general.
ISABEL: Amen.
JULIA: Well, I loved the vampires last time. I'm excited to see some more Gothic literature on my shelf, so I'm very stoked.
ISABEL: Absolutely. Yeah, my publisher pitched Vampires of El Norte as capital G, Gothic. But, you know, I don't think it is. I think there's certain trappings of the Gothic that are specific to certain kinds of settings.
JULIA: Hmm.
ISABEL: Certain kinds of dread that is necessary, that is a genre expectation for the Gothic, that I think— we could call Vampires of El Norte, lowercase G, gothic light, diet Gothic, if you will. But The Possession of Alba Diaz is full fat Gothic.
AMANDA: Hell yeah.
JULIA: Hell yeah. We're talking, you know, haunted house. We're talking about decaying architecture. We're talking about illness that may or may not be manifesting in interesting and unique ways.
ISABEL: We've got religion. We've got grimoires.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: Oh, I love a good grimoire, and I—
JULIA: Oh, my gosh.
ISABEL: —went hard on the book, in this book. I had so much fun, you guys. Like, literally, I was living my best life writing this book.
JULIA: Hell yes, I love to hear it, and you can really see it reflected in the book itself, so I'm gonna tell the audience about a hundred times in this episode to go check it out. So just prepare yourselves for that, because I'm gonna keep saying it.
AMANDA: The Venn diagram of Spirits listeners and people who will consume all three of Isabel's books in as quickly as your eyes or ears can read.
JULIA: So close to the circle.
AMANDA: It's a circle, yeah.
JULIA: So Isabel, I'm curious because I know that your previous books are also historical fiction as well, but take place a little bit later in the timeline.
ISABEL: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: What inspired you to go back a little bit further in time for The Possession of Alba Diaz?
ISABEL: I wanted to make my publisher have panic sweats.
JULIA: Hell yeah.
ISABEL: To be slightly less facetious, I was following the money. When it comes to historical research for my books, and I come up first with a vague idea. Usually, I have a trope in mind that I want to explore or subvert. With The Hacienda, it was the haunted house. With Vampires of El Norte, it was the vampire. And with The Possession of Alba Diaz, I came up with the idea of silver mine, and something wrong in it. I didn't quite know what, but something—
JULIA: Hmm.
ISABEL: —was wrong. There was something supernatural and something spooky. Like, have we not all, like, gotten goosebumps listening to a podcast about a scary mine and people getting lost? Like, I have goosebumps now just thinking about it. Ugh.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: I love that kind of stuff. And so I started to delve into the research of silver mining in Mexico, which was, of course, an enormous part of the Spanish colonial economy, the backbone. Like it was the backbone of the world economy, frankly.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: And changed many things over the course of history. It took me a while to settle on the date in particular. This book takes place in 1765. And what I ended up doing was charting this rise and fall of the silver mining economy in this particular part of Mexico was opulence. Like I wanted that Gothic, like lux, opulent feel. Alba's family is a merchant family. They're really wealthy. We're talking like rich— like Zacatecas was an immensely cosmopolitan city in this period. There were rugs imported from Persia and the Ottoman Empire. You had crystal in China from— that the Philippines fleet would bring in from the Far East. There was clo— French clothing imported from Europe. It was— when it comes to, like, the history of material objects, like I was drooling over the art history books that I, you know, bought to research this period. I was having so much fun delving into this, like vibe, if you will. And when it comes to capital G, full fat Gothic, that vibe is also a bit rotten on the inside.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: There's just something that's wrong at its heart. There's nothing that's glorious and Gothic. Like the contrast— or the juxtaposition rather, of like this opulence and decay. Like it's just our bread and butter, the kind— like for us readers, like Julia, hello. This is so good. So what— so Zacatecas went through lots of booms and busts as the economy— as the mines were profitable and were not. There were different mines north of the city and around it that went through boom times and bust times and many— there are many ghost towns. Like if you think of silver mining in the United States, you can drive through Colorado and visit ghost towns. It was very much the same in this region of Mexico. And so I was— I got really in the weeds of, like, the economic history of Zacatecas, like looking at charts my eyes crossing about, like, silver production, and how many rail is this, and how much money that? And trying to follow— find the right place, and I found it. And I made up a plague to go with it. You said plague and, like, retreating to the mountains as, like, a rich family, and I'm immediately getting the vibes of Masque of the Red Death and—
ISABEL: Yes. Uh-huh.
JULIA: —sort of Edgar Allan Poe—
ISABEL: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —Gothic of it all. So—
ISABEL: Yes.
JULIA: —immediately I'm on board with that.
ISABEL: Yes.
JULIA: I love that.
ISABEL: There was definitely some— that was absolutely some of the inspiration. I think, actually— oh, man, that fall— I was watching the Netflix's—
JULIA: The Fall of the House of Usher.
ISABEL: Yes. Yes.
JULIA: Yes.
ISABEL: Yes, yes, which is not quite the same, but it was the Poe vibe.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: And then I was, like, listening to a lot of Poe stuff on audio. And I relistened to Masque of the Red Death a few years ago.
AMANDA: Sniped it, Julia.
ISABEL: And I was like, "Wow."
JULIA: I was like, "Oh, well, we're retreating to the mountains, huh? I know this one."
ISABEL: Are you my ideal reader?
JULIA: Yes. Isabel, yes. That's why you're on the show.
ISABEL: Yeah.
AMANDA: I noticed like a little bit of a bummer—
ISABEL: Groupie.
AMANDA: —but I couldn't help but think of the more recent times when rich folks retreated to the mountains—
ISABEL: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —especially, you know, mountains—
ISABEL: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —of countries where— that were historically used for extractive, you know, colonial trade during the Covid—
ISABEL: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —pandemic, and the sort of, like, larger senses—
ISABEL: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —of doomsday prepping in an exploitative way that our tech billionaires are doing now. And similarly, I've been reading so much about, like, you know, the ecological effects of trade and mining. There is quite literally something rotten at the core of colonialism, of empire, and of mining, where, you know, folks bodies are on the line—
ISABEL: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —because they have no other option. And someone else in some far away country gets to enjoy that splendor.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: Yeah. And I was— one thing I learned while I was reading about silver mining was the use of Quicksilver to amalgamate silver— or to refine silver, rather. The way that researchers approach this particular part of Mexican history is through— partially through archeology. And so archeologists have gone to these sites to, like, learn more about the processes of silver mining in this period. And you can still find mercury in the dirt. In the 19th century, people would go to these abandoned silver mines and, like, extract mercury from the dirt that had, like— was just hanging out around to then use it to continue to refine silver. Like, quicksilver is poison. It is literally in the Earth. Like that is what—
JULIA: Yeah.
ISABEL: —this ex— like economic exploitation was, like, literally poisoning the land. Like, it's— the metaphor could not bash you over the head more strongly.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: So it was just rich—
AMANDA: But as always, in the Gothic, it gets to creep up and be seen, and that is one of the many, many reasons why I love the genre and why I think it does so well in your decolonial, incredible lens.
ISABEL: Absolutely. I saw— I'm not often on Threads, because it is, in my opinion, a noxious place. But in the lead up to publication, I have to— my publisher has dragged me back onto the interwebs, writ large. Alas, here I am. And I saw a— not a tweet. I saw a post of some random reader and people engaging with it angrily, which is, of course, why it stumbled across my feet. The person writing it wondered, like, is it even possible to have Gothic outside of European contexts because Isn't it like a European creation, and therefore, it must always be European?" And I was like, "Fuck all the way out of here." I'm not even—
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: —engaged with this, because I—
AMANDA: Welcome to the post-modern, and absolutely.
ISABEL: Yeah. Like, the answer is—
JULIA: Yeah.
ISABEL: —you're wrong, of course. See, also my oeuvre— yes, but also, like, so many other writers tackling the post-colonial and gothic literature, like from Toni Morrison to Silvia Moreno Garcia. Like we're here and, like, not to, like, toot my own horn, but like we're kind of knocking it out of the park, so come read our stuff, learn.
JULIA: To also encourage both you and the authors that you recommended for our audience to check out, I also just read a fantastic Vietnamese Gothic novel called She Is a Haunting.
ISABEL: It's so good. It's so good.
JULIA: Fucking fantastic. So good. So good. You'll find a link to it in the show description, because I highly recommend it. It's a great book. But, like, there are so many great opportunities to look at colonialism through the lens of Gothic, and also vice versa, to look at Gothic through the lens of colonialism.
ISABEL: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So I highly recommend.
ISABEL: Absolutely. It's a genre of subversion. It's a genre that discusses power, and class, and money, and repression of all sorts of things. It talks about religion. Like these are all things that are— that walk hand in hand with colonialism across the globe. And so I think that the Gothic must appear, should appear every place on Earth, frankly. Whether it was touched by, like, British flags or French flags, what have you, like there is so much to unearth through this lens.
JULIA: Absolutely. I completely agree, Isabel. And I think that is something that you succeed very well in, in your novels, is you really often tackle the duality of a place's indigenous beliefs and how they come into conflict, but also—
ISABEL: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —meld with the culture of colonization. So in particular, obviously, your books take place in Mexico, and I think that the dual nature of the perspectives of your, like, two main characters are really interesting, because you have Elias be someone who is dabbling in alchemy, is like trying to learn alchemy as a thing that is basically like a colonizer science, I would say, during this time period. In contrast to, like, the more indigenous beliefs and practices that are happening around him is such a, like, interesting thing. And you play with it a lot in both Vampires of El Norte and in The Hacienda. And so I was very excited to see a new exploration of that in this book as well.
ISABEL: Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. When I was talking to someone about this a few— like, two weeks ago, I think, where she asked me if— she talked about— she'd recently interviewed Jane Ann Prince [14:27] about—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: —a concept that they ended up calling the Core Story. This is Agatha Andrews of the She Wore Black Podcast. And she asked— Agatha asked me, is the core story—
JULIA: Hmm.
ISABEL: —like the theme that I keep repeat—
JULIA: Cool.
ISABEL: —returning to in my work? Is it about religion? And I thought about that for a second, because religion does appear throughout my novels. There's a lot of Catholicism in The Hacienda, obviously, but also in The Possession of Alba Diaz. You have the figure of Padre Bartolome, the priest who appears in this book, who you— can you trust him? Unclear, unclear, which is why writing him was so much fun. Oh, my gosh.
AMANDA: You said unreliable position of authority, tainted by colonialism, but also deeply important to communities? Sign me up.
ISABEL: Yes! There we go. It is— you guys are my ideal readers, period. But I think the core story that I keep returning to has to do— not with religion, per se, but to systems of belief, how they shape our worldview.
JULIA: Hmm.
ISABEL: And how they can be transformed by traumatic events. In my novels, those traumatic events are supernatural tropes. But I think one thing that happened when I was researching The Possession of Alba Diaz is I reached really far back into my Catholic upbringing and brought a lot of stuff to the surface. But also I met with some really interesting historical research that I didn't expect. So there are some supernatural aspects in the novel that I've made up, so a lot of it is made up. But one thing that really struck me is I was reading a book called La Crónica de Zacatecas, San Francisco de Zacatecas, which was by a Jesuit who was, you know, stomping around the countryside. You know?
JULIA: Yeah. They love doing that and writing, so that's their two trades.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Uh-huh.
ISABEL: Exactly, exactly. And then writing about it, yeah. So he— this clergyman was— I don't know if he was, like, a cura or whatever his role was. He was in a mining town outside of Zacatecas, which is why I was like, "Oh, well, this is the perfect resource." He was writing it in the 18th century. Again, tick box, perfect resource. And he was speaking to a parishioner, and the parishioner— this indigenous man said to him, "You know, I think you guys are kind—" to paraphrase, "I think you guys are kind of full of shits, because you keep selling us this vision of the afterlife that is full of punishment."
AMANDA: Hmm.
ISABEL: "And I just don't think that's real. Because when a deer dies in the countryside, it decomposes, and becomes a part of the earth again. And when we die, that's what happens. We decompose. You know, there's none of this angels or demons, or— I think you're selling us a crock of shit." And, you know, the priest then goes on to, like, editorialize this interaction. But—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: —as a historian, I looked at that and I was like, "Oh, my God. This is a voice where, first of all, the subaltern speaks, y'all. Like, this is a voice that is not so—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: —infrequently preserved in historical documents, that of a working class indigenous person in the 18th century, written down, like so rare, you guys, so rare.
JULIA: Yeah.
ISABEL: But the content of what he was saying, just like— I got goosebumps. And to me that— I never used that quote directly. I wanted it as an epigraph, but it didn't really vibe with the overall book in the end. But what that did was it informed— I'm not going to spoil anything, but it informed some of Alba's worldview and her interactions with the supernatural entity that possesses her. So it's buried deep in the book, but that particular piece of indigenous belief is there and shapes the worldview of Alba's belief system.
JULIA: Oh, God. I love that. And to your point, yeah, it is incredibly rare to have a direct quote from basically anyone who was not Christian at the time to be written down—
ISABEL: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: —in a resource like that. And I don't want to give props to the Jesuit. I'm not doing that. But the fact that he decided to, hopefully, record this statement unaltered in a way, is, like, very interesting.
ISABEL: Yeah. Like, I'm a medievalist by training. Like, we never get this shit ever. And what? This is incredible.
AMANDA: You're like, "First person account? Say what?"
ISABEL: It rocked me. And I realized, like, it had to be a part of the book somehow. And like I said before, it doesn't like— it doesn't get quoted in the pages. It— I couldn't sneak it as an— sneak it in as an epigraph, but it really is at the beating heart of this book.
JULIA: Incredible. Oh, God. So good. I want to get into more, Isabel, but I think we're gonna take a quick break, refill our drinks, and then get back to it.
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AMANDA: Hey, everybody, it's Amanda, and welcome to the midroll. Julia has been doing an excellent job over on Patreon posting a lot of just, like, fun stuff for free, kind of like we used to use Twitter, before Twitter became a hellscape. So if you want to see things like the vintage marts that we go to on weekends, the haunted dolls that we find in our grandmother's basements, you can go on over to patreon.com/spiritspodcast, and follow us for free. But thank you, especially to those of you who have become paying members over the last week, Nika, Christine, Nour, Kathy, and Meghan, much appreciated. We hope you're enjoying things like our monthly bonus urban legends episode and director's commentary, recipe cards, so much more. We just, by the way, had the start of a new season, so Julia will be posting a tarot reading for the new season for all of you at those levels very soon. Thank you as well to our supporting producer-level patrons, Alicia, Hannah, Scott and Matthew Rico, like Lily and Wil. And our legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. One more time, you can join them at patreon.com/spiritspodcast. If you want to be a part of Spirits, you can send your voice into the show and we might air it. You can leave us your voicemails in the US by dialing 617-420, nice, 2344. Or if you're outside the US, just email us a voice memo, spiritspodcast@gmail.com. Anywhere from a quick question or anecdote all the way to a full story, we will pause as we go and listen and react. And don't you want to hear your voice on the pod? If you've been trying to get like your sister or your mom or your grandma or somebody to tell us an urban legend, have them tell you an urban legend in a voicemail and send that to us. Okay? One more time, the number is 617-420-2344, it's also in the episode description of every episode. And if you want to email because you're outside the US, spiritspodcast@gmail.com. It is a particularly exciting time over here at Multitude, because it is the MulitCrew Drive. Between now, the day you're hearing this, and the next three days, September 26th, we are saying thank you to you specifically for listening to Multitude shows, and especially those who have joined the MulitCrew, which is our membership program supporting Multitude as a whole. We're doing streams, we're doing bonus episodes, we're doing giveaways, all kinds of community events, just to show you how much love you bring to our daily lives, and we hope that we bring to yours. The thing is, folks, we're out here in a tough timeline. We are out here in making a living in independent media, which is challenging in 2025 and your support of Multitude via the MulitCrew, lets us do all the things that I think make us different. The things that we can learn, make art, sustain our business, fuel our growth, everything that we are trying to do, including stuff that, like, doesn't make money, such as sharing our knowledge with others. We have to make time during the workday to do that In order to do this as a living, and your support in the MulitCrew helps us do that. So if you want to join, if you want to hear the incredible exclusive bonus podcast episodes that we have produced, featuring Julia, featuring me, featuring all the hosts of Multitude, you should go to multitudeshows.com. Find out more about the MulitCrew and hopefully join. But no matter what, thank you for being part of our community. Thank you for listening. And now our sponsors. We are sponsored this week by Warby Parker. I used to be extremely afraid of upgrading my reading glasses. I don't use them often enough that I was like, "Oh, like, do I have to go to the store and, like, try things on? What if I feel pressured? I don't like making decisions with people looking at me." And that's what happens. Warby Parker changed all that for me, which was amazing. They are so affordable. They are so easy. You can walk into the store if you want. They are beautiful. Their associates are all super friendly. Or you can just do it online. They make it honestly so, so easy to even get eye exams if you need that, to get contacts, eyeglasses, sunglasses, I've done it all. And most affordably, they start at $95, including prescription lenses with anti-reflective, scratch resistant coating. I love my Warby Parker glasses. I wear, like, three or four different styles, and people at work are like, "Oh, my God, Amanda, I love your glasses so much.
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JULIA: We are back. And Isabel, one of the things that we love to ask our guests here on the podcast is, what you've been drinking lately? Whether that is cocktails, mocktails, coffee creations, what have you, what has been your drink of choice?
ISABEL: Honestly, like this is gonna sound deeply, deeply bougie, and for that, I don't apologize.
JULIA: I already am excited.
AMANDA: Thank you.
ISABEL: Me and my husband's celebration drink of choice is Veuve Clicquot.
JULIA: Fuck yeah.
ISABEL: He just got a new job, and I have a book coming out, so we're gonna be drinking—
JULIA: Yay.
ISABEL: —a lot of Veuve Clicquot.
AMANDA: Hell yeah.
JULIA: Bottles on bottles.
ISABEL: Yeah.
AMANDA: That's so good. Do you do a mimosa? Do you mix it with anything or just enjoy that taste?
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: We just enjoy it. We just enjoy it. Love the bubbles. I got a set of these beautiful glass champagne glasses. They're, like, the round, like, 1920s kind.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Ooh, yeah.
ISABEL: At an estate sale somewhere in Long Island. My sister and I drove— it was right before my PhD dissertation and the release of The Hacienda. And my sister and I drove out—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: —to, like— there's, like, this big, ugly house that was apparently the inspiration for The Great Gatsby. So we wanted to go stomp around and check it out.
AMANDA: Eh.
JULIA: Hell yeah.
ISABEL: It was great. Loved it. And then as we were driving back, I saw this estate sale on the side of the road, and I was like, "Brother-in-law, stop the vehicle. Also, do you have cash? Because I have none."
JULIA: That's up on the North Shore. Those are real nice estate sales/yard sales up there. Like—
ISABEL: Man, get it. It is—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: It was incredible. It was amazing. So I have these beautiful, beautiful glasses, and they were 25 bucks for the whole set. And, like—
JULIA: Pretty good.
ISABEL: —you know, I have no idea what their provenance is, but they are shiny. And when you pour champagne into them, it is a treat.
JULIA: Looks like gold.
ISABEL: So that's what we're going to be doing.
JULIA: Looks like liquid gold.
ISABEL: Oh, it's amazing. It is amazing. I love it. I love it. I love it. So, yeah, bougie ass fuck, but Veuve Clicquot, guys.
JULIA: Listen, nothing class here, honestly. I'm a big fan, so I feel you there.
AMANDA: Incredible.
JULIA: Speaking of bougie, I think one of the things that I really like about the book, too, is kind of the view on class. And we talked a little bit about that in talking about the— maybe not purposeful, but somewhat inspiration of Masque of the Red Death. But is there a particular, like, aspect— I know you talked already about the, like, looking at all of the art and looking at the various different imports that were coming into cities like this. Was there anything particular that sort of blew your mind in doing the historical research for, "Oh, wow. The class difference here is kind of wild."?
ISABEL: The class difference is really stark. I think it was looking at the material culture. I read this book called— The title in Spanish is the Lords of Zacatecas, and it's like a study of the material culture of the aristocratic classes of Zacatecas during these— the boom times of the silver mining industry. And I was just— I was profoundly struck by how cosmopolitan, the material culture was, because I think— because my two previous works felt much more local in their flavor, so to speak. The Hacienda— Mexico City and the— then would become state of Hidalgo, outside of Mexico City at the end of the Mexican War for Independence, was a place that was ravaged by 11 years of civil conflict. And so we weren't exactly, like, strutting around in our silks and our pearls from France, because there was no money, y'all. Like, we are broke. Vampires of El Norte is set in an area that was very much the frontier, the north—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: And Norte of the title, obviously, was the north of Mexico is very much a frontier vibe. It's more Western, capital W in that regard. But Zacatecas, when I started delving into it, like they built this incredibly gorgeous pink cathedral that is still there. The paintings are insanely expensive and insanely gorgeous. Like the textiles, the glassware. Like, oh, my gosh. I wish I could make a graphic novel out of this. That's all I wanted, because— so—
AMANDA: Hey. Never say never.
ISABEL: Never say never. Like somebody call me. I think it would be amazing.
AMANDA: Buy that book.
ISABEL: Yeah. But the other thing that I really got to indulge in when it came to this very cosmopolitan era of the city, was the background of Elias. So he's born in Northern Africa to— in a Spanish colony, to a mother who is half-Arab, half-Spanish, and his father's Spanish. And he's raised, like many of my characters, with one foot in either world. And he spends part of his life in Istanbul, in Constantinople, studying alchemy.
JULIA: Which a peek behind the curtain, was your specialty for your— was it PhD?
ISABEL: Yes. A peek behind the curtain.
JULIA: Yes.
ISABEL: My PhD. The lettering on the degree is Ottoman and Turkish studies. I am an Ottomanist. A real word that I love to throw around. I am an Ottomanist, yes. And so— and I lived in Istanbul, and so I got to write about the Bosphorus, and I got to write about, like, the city in the summer, and what, like, the texture of the humidity is like— and what it's like to, like, walk around the dark city at night. And it was historically believable. Like my editor—
JULIA: Yeah.
ISABEL: —was like, "Really, does he have to have this background?" And I was like, "I will die on this hill. I will die on these seven hills that form the great city of Constantinople." Because—
AMANDA: There you go.
ISABEL: Absolutely. This whole world was so interconnected, and I think we forget that because we arrogantly believe that our interconnected world today is like— well, yes, it is the most connected it has ever been, but it hasn't not been connected in the past. And if you look at the 18th century, if you look at the 17th century, if you look at the 16th century, if you— when it comes to, like, trade and commerce, the world was deeply interconnected. And so Zacatecas was in the north of Mexico. It was a frontier, but it was also the beating heart of the Spanish empire. It pumped blood through the entire enterprise across the globe. And that money actually made its way to the Ottoman Empire and really fucked up the economy, actually.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: Whole books have been written about it. Whole theses have been written about it. But I wanted that cosmopolitanism and that global interconnectedness to be— to have a role in the book. Because when I was researching it, I just couldn't— researching the time and the place, I just couldn't escape it. It was everywhere. And so I localized it in the person of Elias, and I had so much fun with it, because he got to think about things that I think about, like having lived in that part of the world. Like he's in a rich home, and he looks at the floor and he's like, "Oh, I bet that carpet is from Isfahan." Like, that's something that would totally come across my mind. And my editor was like, "Is this too much?" And I was like, "No. Again, I will die on these seven hills." It was just great fun. It was so much fun.
JULIA: Oh, gosh. It's always nice to kind of be able to work your own, like, love for something into a work of fiction like this, so that's so awesome. One of the things I think we would be remiss if we didn't talk about is, included in the title of the book, which is possession.
ISABEL: Ooh, yeah, baby.
JULIA: One of the, I guess, themes in a lot of possession fiction, movies, books, et cetera, is the idea of autonomy, and specifically, like autonomy for women.
ISABEL: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: In approaching how you wanted to talk about possession in this book and sort of how you wanted to portray it. What were some of the things that you were, like, both excited to talk about, but also things that you were like, "Let's see how we can approach this."? How did you go about approaching it? I suppose.
ISABEL: That's a fantastic question. I had a really strong outlook from the jump about where I was going to be positioning point of view in this book. In my research, I did not watch too many movies, because they scare the shit out of me, because I'm a weenie. And having been raised Catholic, possession is one of those scarier things that one can encounter in a movie, in books, in life, what have you. I watched some movies, some clips. I did a lot of reading. I did a lot of podcast listening. I read historical documents. There's one particular book that is pretty widely available called The Penguin Book of Exorcisms that just collects a lot of—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: —firsthand documents of historical and contemporary exorcisms of people, of houses, of places. Bone chilling stuff.
AMANDA: Okay. Opening a new tab—
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: —real quick.
JULIA: Yeah. Amanda adding it to our library.
ISABEL: Yeah, it is—
AMANDA: Hell yeah.
ISABEL: —awesome. I just— I literally stumbled across it in my local branch at the Seattle Public Library.
JULIA: Woo.
ISABEL: —and was like, "Don't mind if I do. Helping myself." But one thing I thought a lot about was how the person possessed was often a woman. And when we think of like in our society, classic possession narratives such as The Exorcist, like it's—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: —a young woman, an innocent woman. And I just— reading and watching and absorbing as much of these narratives as I could, I couldn't— could not help but notice how much of it is told from outside the woman possessed.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: It's about like— the narrative is from the priest's point of view. The narrative is from a relative's point of view. It was so often the case that I never heard this woman's voice unless it was being, you know, manipulated by the entity possessing her. That pissed me off.
JULIA: As it should.
ISABEL: As a writer, I think a lot about point of view and whose head we're in, and how much that influences the text you then produce as an artist. I knew from the start that if Alba Diaz was going to be possessed and she was, it was— you were going to experience it as a reader from inside her head and inside her body.
JULIA: Yeah.
ISABEL: And the person who was gonna save her, you know, there could be some help from the outside, but I wanted her to have agency and autonomy over her situation. I felt very strongly about that from the start.
JULIA: Yeah. And I totally agree, because when you look at so much of possession fiction, it is always about how the possession is impacting other people or like—
ISABEL: Yes.
JULIA: —as you pointed out, like the physical ramifications of the possession on the body of the person.
ISABEL: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Usually a woman, usually a young woman.
ISABEL: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: What impact it is having on her body, but not on her mind and not on, like, how it physically feels to have something else inside of you, a spirit inside of you.
ISABEL: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So it makes me really excited, because one, I think that books are probably one of the best ways to go about actually, like, describing what that feels like from that first person perspective.
ISABEL: Absolutely.
JULIA: And then I also want to give a small shout out to one of the few shows where I felt like they actually did it very well, which was a show— it's on Paramount now. I think it was CBS then originally, but the show Evil is one of fantastic— Isabel, did you watch Evil?
ISABEL: I watched a few episodes at the start.
JULIA: Okay.
ISABEL: It's so good.
JULIA: It's so good.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: But then I had a baby.
JULIA: Season—
ISABEL: It was— it's so good.
JULIA: Understandable.
ISABEL: It's so good.
JULIA: Season two, they deal with the main woman character is going through a possession, and you actually get to kind of experience what it's like for her— from her actual perspective, rather, than it being like everyone around her is like, "Something's wrong," you know? So good.
ISABEL: Oh, amazing. Amazing.
AMANDA: Because so often in these narratives, it's not about the woman as a person or the possessed individual as a person. And I cannot help but see so many parallels to how we deal with mental illness, with psychosis, with all kinds—
ISABEL: Hmm.
AMANDA: —of things that appear as possessions to us. And even disability more broadly. It's about the anxieties and fears of the normative—
ISABEL: Hmm.
AMANDA: —you know, part of society. It's about a young woman as a representation of innocence or fertility, or, you know—
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: —virginity, of whiteness.
ISABEL: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Of all these ways that something, you know, is corrupting her and that. And so to focus, as always in your work, Isabel, the frame of it is radical, before you even get into the excellent story that follows.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, I wish it weren't radical.
AMANDA: Hmm.
ISABEL: I wish centering women's voices was not an— a crazy thing, sometimes, you know?
AMANDA: I know.
JULIA: It's very frustrating that we have so many centuries/millennia of work to dismantle in our fiction now. You know what I mean?
ISABEL: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
AMANDA: How cool to be alive while it's happening, no?
ISABEL: Right.
JULIA: True. True.
ISABEL: To be— I'm so excited to watch that second season of Evil now. Like I'm lining that up for my Summer-ween viewing—
JULIA: Yes.
ISABEL: —happiness. I'm so excited.
JULIA: It's really good. And then once they went on streaming, suddenly everyone can curse now, and you're like, "They should have been—"
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "—letting her say fuck the entire time." So—
ISABEL: Absolutely.
JULIA: —that's a plus as well. So this is interesting for me, and I'm curious if— what your thought process was going through it, because not only is this a possession story, it's also a romance. And I'm very curious if you ever felt any sort of conflict in talking about, like, female autonomy in the view and lens of possession, and—
ISABEL: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —also balancing that out with a romance that feels healthy and good.
ISABEL: Yeah. It was a weird line to walk.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: Because when I was researching possession narratives, I was mostly coming at it from, like, Catholic perspective, because I knew—
JULIA: Sure.
ISABEL: —that was the most organic— or the approach I'd rather— I wanted to take in this story. There was going to be a Catholic framework on both how the characters experience the world and the religious authorities they were coming in contact with. There was all of this weird stuff about like,
"Possessed woman masturbates for seven hours straight," and like,
"Possessed woman is freaky," and, "Possessed woman does weird sex stuff and throws up semen for— gallons of semen." And there was all this weird stuff like— you know?
JULIA: Yeah.
ISABEL: This is not for my book. I wanted autonomy and consent to be a huge part of how Alba is able to enjoy her victory in the end. I wanted her to be able to experience autonomy and consent as you come to the end of this book. Some of that weird stuff was not thematically congruent with the vibe I was getting at. I also wanted to write a romance that was a capital R, Romance, that even if the two participants are a little fucked up in their own ways. Like he's a bit of a fixer upper. My daughter is deep in her Frozen phase, and that song goes on loop in my head. What is it about possession and sex that is like such a focal point of possession narratives? Is it to do with Catholic repression? The answer is probably yes. There's so much of it.
JULIA: I would also argue that part of it is a patriarchal lens.
ISABEL: Yeah.
JULIA: And this idea that women can't possibly enjoy sex, so it's— must be the demon if they're going ahead and masturbating, or, like, you know, talking in, "lewd" ways about sex.
ISABEL: Yeah.
JULIA: You know what I mean? So, like, to have that be a feature of so many possession stories feels like a result of how men feel women should feel about sex. I know that's a lot of how people feel about how people feel.
ISABEL: Yes.
JULIA: But—
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: No, no, no, no. I absolutely agree. And so, like I said, this is— like I said earlier, about point of view, this is about being, like, very firmly in Alba's point of view and her—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: —experience of the possession. And so when it came to— the other thing I was struggling with was like, how do I balance a emotional and physical relationship with another person while main character is possessed by demon? I walk the line—
JULIA: But that's— like, it's interesting because you're making commentary on it, not because, like, it wouldn't be interesting otherwise. You know what I mean?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Like, you can—
ISABEL: Yeah.
JULIA: —talk about autonomy through the lens of possession, because possession is all about losing autonomy in a lot of ways.
AMANDA: And possession—
ISABEL: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —is erotic. Like we've talked about this—
ISABEL: Yes.
AMANDA: —before. There is something—
ISABEL: Yeah.
AMANDA: —about being possessed, about possessing another— about replacing your insides with someone else's. Like, there is— this is a spectrum. The spectrum of, like, desire and of almost, like, forgetting societal constraints or having them removed from you. And, you know, from the many, many historical examples of women acting any type of way and being labeled as hysterical to the desires that someone might make clear, or that a condition might make clear for them, that you know there is no explanation for while upholding systems like patriarchy, white supremacy, you know, binary, you know, oppressive Christian, you know, thought in— as a tool of colonization. That— you know, those can't stand and also acknowledge that this could be a thought a person comes to on their own. In so many ways, you know, possession is, I think, a fair game for, you know, whether it is the mixing of building a relationship while your own sense of self is perhaps not exactly stitched together.
ISABEL: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Like, that's, I think, where most of us are when we fall in love or think about it. And I think just— there's— it is such a natural pairing. It's like lime and avocado, baby. Like, there's just— it goes together, like mwa.
JULIA: Yeah.
ISABEL: I love talking to you guys. I just love it.
JULIA: Incredible. And, yeah, Amanda and I were recently having a conversation with a colleague about, like, romance and why there's so many, like, romance tropes about, "Oh, this guy sucks, but it's not actually that he sucks. It's just he's, like, not dealing with a certain thing the right way." And—
ISABEL: I totally—
AMANDA: The, like, grumpy cinnamon roll. You know?
JULIA: Yeah, the grumpy cinnamon roll.
ISABEL: Oh, right, right, right.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: Oh, it's like I— I'm like, "But wouldn't it be more interesting if he were possessed by a demon and you had to save him?" That's the kind of man I would fix.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And that's like absolutely the thing, right? It's like there are definitely different flavors of romance reader and romance enjoyer.
ISABEL: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And there are really interesting, like, steps you can take, I guess, going along the spicy train, for lack of a better phrase.
ISABEL: Yeah.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And so—
ISABEL: Absolutely.
JULIA: —I think talk—
ISABEL: All aboard.
JULIA: I think talking about possession in the lens of a romance novel is extremely interesting. And a little bit more so than some of the other romance novels that I enjoy, but maybe don't have as complex a plot.
ISABEL: Yeah. I absolutely love the marriage of horror in romance.
JULIA: Hell yeah.
ISABEL: And I really hope it spreads and continues to prosper out in the big, bad world of publishing, because, like you said, like, possession, is it not inherently erotic?
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: Like, is there not—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: —something obviously, inherently erotic about vampires? Like— but, like, obviously, the pairing is, like, you said, avocado and lime. It's just so obviously— like, obviously, they go together. You're scared.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: He's hot. Let's do it, guys.
JULIA: Monster fuckers, unite. You know?
ISABEL: Yes.
AMANDA: Adrenaline does lots of things to the body and— yeah.
ISABEL: No. I think about this a lot, though. Is it like the bridge test, the psychological experiment, where, like, you, the subject of the experiment, walk across a super scary bridge and you speak to a scientist at the other end, and then you walk away?
JULIA: Hmm.
ISABEL: And you think it's about how scary the bridge was, or how you feel then. But really what's being studied is how hot you think that scientist at the end is, because—
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: —literally, like the rush of adrenaline and your fear response, you see another human, you are more likely to rate them as hot.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: You're like, "Let's get these genes moving."
ISABEL: This is the underpinning of all of my novels.
AMANDA: Incredible.
JULIA: This also explains so many, like, adventure movies where it's like, "Why are these—"
ISABEL: Totally.
JULIA: "—people so horny for each other after they just survived—"
AMANDA: Thriller romance.
JULIA: "—this terrible thing."
ISABEL: Yes.
JULIA: Well, duh, their adrenaline has been pumping for, like, four hours.
AMANDA: "We survived. Let's have sex."
JULIA: Yes, yes.
ISABEL: The world must be people.
AMANDA: Exactly.
JULIA: Wow. Incredible. Not where I thought we were going to go in this episode, but excited that we got here.
ISABEL: I'm thrilled.
AMANDA: As always. You're paving a pathway for future three-peat guests, if there are any that are, you know, worthy enough to join your club, Isabel.
JULIA: Who can say?
ISABEL: I hope so, I hope so, because then I want to talk to them.
AMANDA: There you go.
JULIA: Yeah.
ISABEL: They passed the Spirits test, yes.
AMANDA: We'll start a group chat.
JULIA: Isabel, one of the things that I really enjoy about your books, and I think I've said this before on— if it wasn't this episode, other episodes, but I love the way that you meet indigenous beliefs with Catholicism. In deciding what the spirit that you wanted to have doing the possession would be, were you at all in conflict with yourself over where or what origin you wanted that spirit to be from?
ISABEL: So a little bit yes. However, there is an icky trope in horror literature of like, "Oh, the evil indigenous spirit is coming to get you, like—"
JULIA: Looking at you, The Exorcist.
ISABEL: Hello?
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: And it's tired. Let's put it to bed.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: You know what's scarier? The Catholic Church. What if— so when I was crafting this book, I had— you know, there's a version of it that lives— like an outline, that lives on my hard drive, where I was going—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: —back and forth about where the spirit came from, because where the spirit comes from and what it is—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: —deciding that would decide a lot of other pieces of the world- building of the novel, so to speak. The supernatural—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: —world-building, which is what I overlay on top of the historical setting. I need this— I use this fantasy term because it is fantasy what I'm doing. I decided the book just didn't work. It just didn't work, and it wasn't a playground I wanted to hang out in either. And so I ended up— I don't want to give too much away, but the demon at the heart of this book, in Alba's deepest of hearts, is of European extraction. It hitches a ride with some colonizers, and that's how it makes its way around the world. That's where it came from, because, again, I wanted to— there's a lot of my work that takes aim at subverting old tropes, and I think the Gothic is the perfect place to do that, because it is a genre that has, from the start, been inherently subversive in how it centered women's voices, in how it dealt with so many of the other themes that we talked about today. And so that's where it came from. Because you know what's scary? Like the Catholic Church and its belief about demon.
JULIA: The Spanish Inquisition, very scary.
ISABEL: The Spanish— no one expects it.
JULIA: No one expects it.
ISABEL: My sister once observed that she thinks we're drawn to speculative fiction because growing up in a profoundly conservatively Catholic household, we lived a supernatural reality. When we were in that bubble where the battle between lightness and dark, and the battle between good and evil was not an abstract thing, it was extremely concrete, and it was something that you lived every day. And demons could actually harm you, which is I think why when I was coming up with the concept for this book, I scared myself a little bit, because this is an— this is a supernatural trope that for a large portion of my brain development was not a trope. It was reality, and it was something that could actually harm you. And I remember working on this book like— at my old office, at my old house. I didn't have, like, good lighting in my office, so I had like a little baby desk lamp. And, you know, it was a creaky, windy summer evening and I was just like, "Is this a good idea? Am I inviting, you know—"
AMANDA: Yeah.
ISABEL: "—something sinister into my world by choosing to write about this topic?" And it was— I don't know, it was just a little scary to try and approach it, which speaks so much to, like, my, you know, little baby Isabel was a little fucked up, guys. But it— yeah, the whole mythos of the Catholic Church and demonology, and the exorcisms that take place in this book, because, yes, exorcisms, there are multiple, there are many in this book. Buckle up. Though, the right— the Catholic right of exorcism is drawn from the actual old text that, by the way, was not updated until, I think, like 1990. So, like, we were using the same right of exorcism from, like, '16, whatever, until 1990, y'all.
AMANDA: Yes.
ISABEL: The year of our Lord in which I was born.
JULIA: Yeah, I was pretty late.
ISABEL: Wild. And so—
AMANDA: Wild.
ISABEL: Yeah, I absolutely— when it comes to the meaning of indigenous belief and colonizer belief, Catholic belief, like this melding, this mix of the two is something that is also inherently Mexican. I think one thing that's gorgeous about the culture that I have the honor to call my own is how it was served lemons, and it made the most incredible lemonade.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
ISABEL: It was served a whole pile of shit in the form of settler colonial experience. It experienced a lot of death. It experienced a lot of grief and resource extraction, and all sorts of traumatic stuff. And then what rose from it was this melange or mezcla, if you will, of belief to make sense of the world that they found— people found themselves in, and that ended up being the heritage of indigenous belief that is alive— very much a living, breathing, changing thing, and what was forced upon them that they made their own. And so one of the things that I tackle a lot in my books is this mix, this meeting of two worlds that was not— did not happen on equal footing, and what people made of it as a result. And how they made sense of their world. And then I throw in a little bit of the supernatural, because it's just really fun.
AMANDA: It sounds like a possession that people did not ask for and did not consent to. That then they have to live in the aftermath of and say, what parts of that, you know, made sense? What parts of it can I carry forward and make sense of what it's like to live and love and laugh and die, you know, in the world that you're in.
ISABEL: But especially died, because it's Mexico and we think about death all the time.
AMANDA: No one does it better.
ISABEL: Finger snaps.
JULIA: Incredible. Amanda, great wrap up for us. Thank you. I appreciate that. Fantastic. And Isabel, thank you so much for joining us again. We'll have you on anytime you write a book, whenever you want.
AMANDA: Yay.
ISABEL: Oh, my gosh. Yes, well, buckle up because I'll be back, because I have more books on the docket.
JULIA: Yes, we love to hear it. Incredible. Where can people find you and your work? And obviously, we will have links for where they can order The Possession of Alba Diaz.
ISABEL: Yes. So the paperbacks of The Hacienda and Vampires of El Norte available wherever fine books are sold, whether that's ebook, audio paperback. The Possession of Alba Diaz will be available on August 19th, again, wherever fine books are sold. I love third place books here in Seattle. They're my buddy. They're my local indie. They're great. I also love Libro.fm for getting audiobooks and supporting indie bookstores at the same time. You can also find all of my books at your local library. You can find me, if you wish to find me, but really go read my books. You'll learn more about me that way than any other way, truly. You can find me on isabelcanas.com, I-S-A-B-E-L-C-A-N-A-S, punto com. And my newsletter is there. You can smash the link, sign up, and receive missives from me every once in a while. I promise I will not clutter your inbox. I am too sleep deprived to do that, or to be organized about it. I can also be found on Instagram, where my publisher wishes I was more often at isabelcañas_.
JULIA: Fair enough. Fair enough. Isabel, again, thank you so, so much. It was wonderful having you. And remember, listeners, next time you feel something possessing you, stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
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