Hardcover, 336 pages
Published July 18, 2023 by Del Rey.
Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys’ club running the film industry in ’90s Mexico City. And she’s all but invisible to her best friend, Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, though she’s been in love with him since childhood.
Then Tristán discovers his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he can change their lives—even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed.
Now the director wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her, and Tristán begins seeing the ghost of his …
Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys’ club running the film industry in ’90s Mexico City. And she’s all but invisible to her best friend, Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, though she’s been in love with him since childhood.
Then Tristán discovers his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he can change their lives—even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed.
Now the director wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her, and Tristán begins seeing the ghost of his ex-girlfriend.
As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Tristán may find that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies.
As always, a fun jaunt to Mexico by Moreno-Garcia, however this foray into "horror" was not my thing. The magical lacked the detailed complexity I would have expected from the author. She did write one of the protagonists, Tristán, masterfully as a total dick.
Film and sound nerdery, Crowley-esque occult magic and meatballs, what else would you want? I really enjoyed this one and can't wait to read Mexican Gothic (which Father Christmas has kindly bestowed).
I want to like Moreno-Garcia’s novels so badly. I really want to. I think she is a good writer overall; where she fails, every time, is in the plotting and pacing of her work. This work is no exception. The general plot, which is somewhat similar to Gemma Files’ Experimental Film, is not uninteresting. But the pace of the story is so sloooooooooow. Literally hundreds of pages go by in which nothing really happens. This would have made an interesting novella, perhaps—but there just isn’t enough story for a 300+ page novel.
The characters themselves are truly awful—not just unlikeable antiheroes, but insufferable, obnoxious representations of people. Why should we care if they succeed? Why should we want them to win? You got me, dear reader, you got me.
And that’s pretty much it. Each novel by Moreno-Garcia just leaves me feeling disappointed, saddened by the wasted potential. Maybe …
I want to like Moreno-Garcia’s novels so badly. I really want to. I think she is a good writer overall; where she fails, every time, is in the plotting and pacing of her work. This work is no exception. The general plot, which is somewhat similar to Gemma Files’ Experimental Film, is not uninteresting. But the pace of the story is so sloooooooooow. Literally hundreds of pages go by in which nothing really happens. This would have made an interesting novella, perhaps—but there just isn’t enough story for a 300+ page novel.
The characters themselves are truly awful—not just unlikeable antiheroes, but insufferable, obnoxious representations of people. Why should we care if they succeed? Why should we want them to win? You got me, dear reader, you got me.
And that’s pretty much it. Each novel by Moreno-Garcia just leaves me feeling disappointed, saddened by the wasted potential. Maybe the problem is that, even though I really want to like Moreno-Garcia’s novels, I just don’t.
4.5/5
There was something about this book that was just so incredibly captivating. Something about how the mystical was woven through the mundane and slowly ramped up throughout the story. I really enjoyed the amount of detail put into everything, starting from the historic cinematography references all the way to audio technician work during the era, it was just all so rich and I really loved it.
The characters were both so good as well, each with their own troubles and hardships but still close friends through both good and bad. I loved the interwoven story and the progression of them understanding more and more what they have stumbled into.
The magic as well was just so interesting and strange. I wasn’t sure how well it would work in such a grounded novel and there were some instances that may have been a bit too much but overall the mysticism …
4.5/5
There was something about this book that was just so incredibly captivating. Something about how the mystical was woven through the mundane and slowly ramped up throughout the story. I really enjoyed the amount of detail put into everything, starting from the historic cinematography references all the way to audio technician work during the era, it was just all so rich and I really loved it.
The characters were both so good as well, each with their own troubles and hardships but still close friends through both good and bad. I loved the interwoven story and the progression of them understanding more and more what they have stumbled into.
The magic as well was just so interesting and strange. I wasn’t sure how well it would work in such a grounded novel and there were some instances that may have been a bit too much but overall the mysticism was well done.
Overall I really enjoyed it and will certainly be looking out for more books by Silvia!
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the review copy!
We don’t know the exact number but the Library of Congress (according to their own studies) estimates that around 75% of silent films have been lost due to lack of preservation, vault fires, or because no one bothered to save the films in the first place. This figure only encompasses silent films created before sound films took over in the 1930s and does not include films that were never finished in the first place, like the mysterious movie at the center of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s excellently chilling new novel, Silver Nitrate. The mass of unknown and lost films offers plenty of room for a creative, clever writer like Moreno-Garcia to work with...
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
