Review of The Bewitching—Witches of Folklore

“Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches…” Is there a single element of horror fiction that Silvia Moreno-Garcia can’t write? She first hit it big when she blended traditional Gothic tropes with post-colonial mushroom horror in Mexican Gothic. She put a unique, multicultural noir spin on vampires in Certain Dark Things. And she mixed her love of old horror films with cults and curses in Silver Nitrate. And that’s not to mention the books of hers I haven’t gotten to yet, like The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, which reimagines the classic sci-fi horror tale by H. G. Wells. This prolific and multi-talented author tackles witches in her latest novel, The Bewitching, which came out last month.

As a resident director remaining on the nearly empty campus of Stoneridge College over the summer, Minerva is determined to use the peace and quiet to finally make some progress on her thesis. She’s researching the life of an obscure author of horror fiction named Beatrice Tremblay and how her works may have been influenced by both local folklore and real-life experiences. In particular, her cult-classic novel The Vanishing is said to have been inspired by a strange disappearance that took place while she was student at Stoneridge. As Minerva befriends the wealthy Yates family and gains access to Beatrice’s journals and unpublished manuscripts, the story divides into multiple timelines with eerie similarities. In 1998, Minerva’s timeline, an undergraduate student drops out without explanation, abandoning boxes of his belongings in the residence hall. In Beatrice’s journal from 1934, she recounts the events surrounding the sudden disappearance of her roommate Virginia Somerset. And in 1908, Minerva’s great-grandmother, Alba, comes to believe that her family is being tormented by a witch after her brother vanishes from his bedroom. As Minerva pieces together the truth about what happened to Virginia Somerset, she’ll need to use all of the wisdom passed down to her by Nana Alba if she doesn’t want to become the next student to go missing.

The Bewitching takes a very different approach to the concept of witches than many modern fantasy and horror novels. Today, we have a tendency to view witches through a romanticized and feminist lens, seeing them as powerful women misunderstood by the patriarchy. But Silvia Moreno-Garcia draws on an older tradition, inspired by the stories told to her by her own great-grandmother who grew up in rural Mexico. These stories blend Indigenous beliefs with Christianity and the witches in them are often malevolent figures who curse crops, kill animals, and torment families out of jealousy, spite, or pure cruelty. These witches share characteristics with other monsters of folklore, such as vampires. The teyolloquani are a particularly terrifying type of witch who are known to feed on human blood and ultimately eat their victim’s heart. In a scene very reminiscent of J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, Alba wakes up one night to the sensation of two needles piercing her breast and a shadowy figure in her bedroom. In The Bewitching, “magic is desire,” and witches or the power their magic offers can have a seductive quality. But to overindulge that desire is gluttony and it tends to come back and consume the witch in the end.

The Bewitching contrasts nicely with another dark academia novel I recently reviewed, The Library at Hellebore. While Hellebore was all about the aesthetics and light on the academics, The Bewitching fully puts the “academic” in dark academia. Both Minerva and the author herself are clearly passionate fans of horror literature. While Minerva’s chosen subject of study is a fictional author, she alludes to other writers who sparked her interest in New England, from H.P. Lovecraft to Shirley Jackson and Stephen King and frequently chats with her friend Hideo about his thesis topic of Henry James. Though there are no classes in session over the summer, Minerva is immersed in her thesis research and the book depicts her methods in depth. Since her story is set in the 1990s, before widespread access to the internet, it’s a nostalgic look at analog research methods, including copying documents and notes by hand, taking photos of artwork and then waiting to get the film developed, traveling to nearby libraries for particular books, and meeting in-person with individuals who can share first-hand accounts or private archives. The novel is also grounded in the daily reality of living on-campus in one of America’s old, East Coast colleges. Especially as a resident director, Minerva’s day-to-day tasks involve patrolling campus, inspecting dorms, enforcing school rules, and abiding by the school’s bureaucracy. When you read The Bewitching, you’ll feel as if you, too, are a student at Stoneridge College. 

Whether you’ve loved Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s previous works or are coming to her for the first time, The Bewitching is definitely worth checking out! You can find it on shelves now at your favorite local retailer (The Mysterious Bookshop has signed copies!) or buy it online and support The Gothic Library in the process using this Bookshop.org affiliate link. If you’ve already read it, let me know what you think in the comments!