Shelf Life: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
4 min readWelcome to Shelf Life, ELLE’s books column. In this ongoing series, authors share an assortment of their most memorable reads: the books that have shaped their lives as writers and as human beings. Every month, ELLE will feature authors with a new and upcoming release of their own, asking them which stories have impacted their work most—and which stories they recommend you pick up next. Whether you’re on the hunt for a book to move you, calm you, or change you, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia calls The Intrigue, her latest novel, “a sultry 1940s noir about a con artist who meets his match.” Ulisses, the handsome starring con man, has charmed women out of their money through his letters, but when he meets a sharp young woman who figures out his scheme, she wants in.
The book is the 11th that the very prolific author of Mexican Gothic and The Daughter has released in the past decade. It was inspired by “vintage lonely-hearts ads along with modern romance scams, costumbrista novels, noirs, and Mexican soap operas,” she tells ELLE, and is perfect for fans of The Postman Always Rings Twice and Mildred Pierce.
Moreno-Garcia, who was born in Mexico and now lives in Canada, was well into her career when Mexican Gothic, released in 2020, became a bestseller. Success hasn’t changed her nature: She’s “not a people person, so I’m not naturally inclined to hang out with any human beings at all.” Her parents both worked in radio; she attended Endicott College in Massachusetts and received an MA in Science and Technology Studies from the University of British Columbia, where she wrote a thesis focused on eugenics in the work of H.P. Lovecraft; she was the communications coordinator for the faculty of science at the university for years before she quit to write full-time; fans of her work often give her friendship bracelets.
Check out her book recommendations below.
The book that:
…first taught me to love reading:
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. I read it as a tween and fell in love with the beautiful prose and mythic feel of the novel.
…helped me become a better writer:
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert was a discovery. I had been reading a lot of pulp fiction, which is heavy on the action, and here I discovered the importance of interiority and the glory of the mundane. Not every story need be about huge conflicts.
…has the best love story:
Look, it’s Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. You just can’t top that. Ellen Olenska and Newland Archer’s love affair may be unconsummated, but it burns more hotly than many a sex-heavy book.
…has the best setting:
The Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake. A huge, rambling castle is always going to be interesting, but Peake makes it extra Gothic, a little feverish, and a tad Rococo.
…has the best plot twist:
The Prestige by Christopher Priest. You’re reading a historical novel about two rival magicians and trying to figure out what the secret is to their magical acts, and bam, it’s not what you would have guessed when you started the book.
…has the best magic system:
Almost any Tim Powers fantasy novel, including but not limited to The Stress of Her Regard, where Romantic poets are manipulated by supernatural, vampire-like creatures which also inspire them to create great works. Also, Roger Zelazny’s The Chronicles of Amber, where people can travel through parallel worlds and use tarot cards to speak to each other across vast distances.
…has the best central mystery:
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. The protagonist tortures herself thinking about the lovely romance her husband had with his perfect wife and how amazing she was. Although long dead, Rebecca haunts the living in a palpable and eerie way.
…has the best cast of characters:
It seems that every Latin American author of the mid-twentieth century had a sprawling multigenerational novel with casts of characters in the dozens, but Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo stands out because a bunch of people who are dead show up too. Ghosts liven up any novel, pun intended.
…is the most performative for someone to read in public:
Since I saw that scene in 10 Things About You where the heroine is reading a gigantic copy of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, I always chuckle when I see that book at a bookstore. I’m waiting to see if I ever bump into someone carrying a copy of it the size of Moby Dick like in the film.