Stories from Cuba and Mexico

If you want to be a good writer, you'd better be good reader. To that end, I've got a bunch of books in my reading stack and at the moment, the titles are limited to a pair of writers, Leonardo Padura and Silvia Moreno-Garcia. You may recognize Padura as the acclaimed author of the Mario Conde series, the exploits of a Cuban police detective. The novels spin through the tropes of the big-city gumshoe: a deep cynicism about society, a distrust in authority, hangovers, stale cigarettes, failed romances, and an overbearing boss. What keeps the stories fresh is the location, contemporary Havana, which seems exotic in the details and setting, and Padura's incisive scrutiny of Cuba's political structure. Who knew so many sketchy characters thrived in the cracks of Marxist society? I tend to be a fast reader, which means I end up skimming more than I should, but in Padura's books, because I'm reading them in Spanish, that causes me to sift through the prose and better appreciate its rich texture.

I recently interviewed Moreno-Garcia for StokerCon 2021, scheduled for Denver...God willing. She's a Mexican writer (now living in Vancouver, BC). Besides extending congratulations for having her novel, Mexican Gothic, being adapted by Hulu TV, we discussed the writing process and her career. All of her novels are set during a definitive time period in Mexico. Every narrative carves a swarth through Mexican society, experienced through a woman's perspective, and what emerges is a Mexico quite different from the cliché that we're used to seeing from this side of the border. Mexico does not perceive itself as a Third-World country but a nation with modern sensibilities. Her novel Signal to Noise is framed by the mixed-tape pop culture of the 80s. Gods of Jade and Shadow is a supernatural tale blending Mayan legends with the 20s jazz age as it unfolded in Mexico. For sure, class privilege and historical antecedents create the stage upon which the characters appear, but that is true in any good story. In the interview we shared this quizzical take on what constitutes Latino literature in the US. Seems that the only accepted works as American "Latino" literature must focus on the immigrant experience (recent and impoverished) or on occasion, relate the tribulations involving the sisterhood of sassy Latinas. Even though my books feature a Chicano detective-vampire and draw from Mexican and Southwestern mythology, they are branded as supernatural stories, front to back. Then too, just one drop of science fiction or the paranormal keeps even a good detective yarn off the shelves of mystery fiction.