Explore: Oaxaca

Explore The World 2022
through books, films, etc. May: Oaxaca

READ: set in Mexico

Hurricane Season
by Fernanda Melchor
translated by Sophie Hughes
Literary, Mexico | Goodreads
AUDIOBOOK: set in Mexico

Certain Dark Things
by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Fantasy, Horror, Vampires, Mexico | Published: 2021 (first 2016) | Goodreads

WATCH: filmed in Oaxaca

Nacho Libre (2006)
Director/Writer: Jared Hess
Writers: Jerusha Hess, Mike White
Stars: Jack Black, Ana de la Reguera, Héctor Jiménez
Comedy, Family, Sport, Mexico | imdb
Berated all his life by those around him, a monk follows his dream and dons a mask to moonlight as a Luchador (Mexican wrestler).

FLIP THROUGH:

Oaxaca
The Spirit of Mexico
by Judith Cooper Haden
Travel, Mexico | Published: 2002 | Goodreads
"A riot of color and commotion, Oaxaca is Mexico at its most authentic and spontaneous."
—Travel & Leisure

Each year, a quarter million Americans visit the Mexican state of Oaxaca, an ancient land where indigenous, pre-Columbian, and colonial worlds exist side by side. Photographer Judith Haden offers a pictorial love letter to Oaxaca, illuminating its everyday life in supersaturated blues, dazzling yellows, and pinks so hot they vibrate on the page.

Compelling portraits of market vendors, folk art and artists, fiestas, and historic sites are matched by insightful prose. More than a dozen essays explore the street markets, religious festivals, artes populares, music, architecture, gastronomy, history, and language, tracing the palpable features of the faces of Oaxaca.

With more than two hundred breathtaking color photographs, this volume captures the spirit and traditions of a valley whose dynamic culture, hospitable people, and rugged beauty have bewitched travelers since the time of Cortez.

PEEKABOOK:

VISIT: someday...

La Proveedora Bookstore
(details)
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* part of Explore the World (here)

Happy release: VIDAS by Edward Stanton

VIDAS
Deep in Mexico and Spain
by Edward Stanton
Travel, Memoir, Mexico, Spain | Published: March 2021 | Goodreads
When the American ministers of hate demonized Mexico and the coronavirus struck Spain, Edward Stanton sat down to write a homage to these countries that he knows as well as his own. The result is VIDAS: Deep in Mexico and Spain, the first travel memoir to portray the two most populous Spanish-speaking countries in one volume, written with the perspective of an American and the knowledge of an insider.

A wayward descendant of Mexico’s national hero, a femme fatale who recites poems in cantinas, a Tunisian prostitute in Barcelona, a Spanish psychiatrist who fights brave bulls, the wise owner of the world’s oldest restaurant. They are just a handful of the characters portrayed in this vibrant travel memoir. VIDAS: Deep in Mexico and Spain explores subjects as diverse as the art of blasphemy, the cult of the Virgin Mary, superstition and witchcraft, the bordellos of Mexico, Spain’s paradise of drink and food, the bullfight and the running of bulls in Pamplona, the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Every chapter of this book depicts a different person or place, which combined create a cross section of the most populous Spanish-speaking countries in the New and Old World.

VIDAS: Deep in Mexico and Spain is a passage from childhood to adolescence and maturity, a tribute to nature and the open road, an exaltation of love, food and wine, a journey from the tender, mortal flesh to the luminous world of the spirit.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Mexican Gothic
by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
narrated by Frankie Corzo

Published: 2020
Publisher: Del Rey
Hardback: 301
Rating: 4
Historical, Horror, Mexico | Goodreads | Website
Travel destination: Mexico

First sentence(s):
The parties at the Tuñóns' house always ended unquestionably late, and since the hosts enjoyed costume parties in particular, it was not unusual to see Chinas Poblanos with their folkloric skirts and ribbons in their hair arrive in the company of a harlequin or a cowboy.

After receiving a frantic letter from her newlywed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find - her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.

Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.

And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.

My two-bits:

Slow burn surreal horror with that gothic vibe as the title suggests. Haunted house doings. Perfectly haunting for the season.

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* Listened to audiobook version.

* part of Armchair Autumn Travel (here)

Don’t Send Flowers by Martin Solares

Don’t Send Flowers
by Martin Solares

Published: 2018
Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat
Paperback: 442
Rating: 5
Mystery, Crime, Mexico | Goodreads

First sentence(s):
He told them there was someone who could find the girl: an ex-cop.

Zombie sighting:
He pictured a small, smelly bathroom; a cheap blanket; nights spent on a cot, catching a few winks here and there—always at the beck and call of the residents and their stuck-up kids, afraid some burglar might take advantage if he nodded off—that zombie state where you can't think clearly, which steals one day after another until the end.
-page 247

From a writer whose work has been praised by Junot Diaz as "Latin American fiction at its pulpy phantasmagorical finest," Don't Send Flowers is a riveting novel centered on Carlos Trevino, a retired police detective in northern Mexico who has to go up against the corruption and widespread violence that caused him to leave the force, when he's hired by a wealthy businessman to find his missing daughter.

A seventeen-year-old girl has disappeared after a fight with her boyfriend that was interrupted by armed men, leaving the boyfriend on life support and the girl an apparent kidnap victim. It's a common occurrence in the region—prime narco territory—but the girl's parents are rich and powerful, and determined to find their daughter at any cost. When they call upon Carlos Trevino, he tracks the missing heiress north to the town of La Eternidad, on the Gulf of Mexico not far from the U.S. border—all while constantly attempting to evade detection by La Eternidad's chief of police, Commander Margarito Gonzalez, who is in the pockets of the cartels and has a score to settle with Trevino.

My two-bits:

Sketchy characters, corruption and loyalties. And yet, one who gets the job done despite the pickles he finds himself in.

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* part of Books, Inc. Foreign Intrigue Book Club (here)

* part of Summertime time (schedule)