#BookReview ‘The Haunting Of Alejandra’ by V.Castro

About the book…

A woman is haunted by the Mexican folk demon La Llorona as she unravels the dark secrets of her family history in this ravishing and provocative horror novel.

Alejandra no longer knows who she is. To her husband, she is a wife, and to her children, a mother. To her own adoptive mother, she is a daughter. But they cannot see who Alejandra has become: a woman struggling with a darkness that threatens to consume her.

Nor can they see what Alejandra sees. In times of despair, a ghostly vision appears to her, the apparition of a crying woman in a ragged white gown.

When Alejandra visits a therapist, she begins exploring her family’s history, starting with the biological mother she never knew. As she goes deeper into the lives of the women in her family, she learns that heartbreak and tragedy are not the only things she has in common with her ancestors.

Because the crying woman was with them, too. She is La Llorona, the vengeful and murderous mother of Mexican legend. And she will not leave until Alejandra follows her mother, her grandmother, and all the women who came before her into the darkness.

But Alejandra has inherited more than just pain. She has inherited the strength and the courage of her foremothers—and she will have to summon everything they have given her to banish La Llorona forever.

Hugest of thanks to Titan books for my gifted review copy of V.Castro’s latest novel,‘The Haunting Of Alejandra’, which was published in e-book and paperback formats in October 2023.

An extraordinary novel which examines, at close quarters, the cumulative effect of generational trauma, the pressures on women to conform to a patriarchal stereotype and what happens when women rise up and say ‘no more’, this is a book which leaves you with a hangover.

You cannot move on and shake it off easily, it opens with Alejandra being introduced to the reader in an incredibly vulnerable, physical and mental state which broke my heart.

As a mother of 3 young children, she *should* be grateful as she *has it all*, 3 healthy children, no pressure to earn a living, a devoted husband, a roof over her head.

But….

She is a child of misplaced identity, as an indigenous women adopted by a Christian couple who saw it as their duty to raise Alejandra and her siblings *correctly* and paid no attention to her cultural and spiritual needs.

As a result, when she is at her lowest ebb-and believe me, it goes to some very dark places-she has no context for the white , wraith like figure that appears to her and encourages her to end her life.

She thinks her depressive state may be causing hallucinations until she , almost by fluke, connects with her birth mother and begins to tap into this elemental force that stretches back through her matriarchal lineage .

So, how can you make horror out of something which is already horrific? You have a woman who is clearly struggling, asking for help and being told by her husband that she has everything she needs. Physically and materially she is protected by his wealth but this is the issue, it belongs to him. She is not financially independent and as a result of her upbringing, has been raised to be that good girl, who doesn’t complain, so when she does, this should be a huge clarion call to him.

Except he doesn’t, he is not necessarily a bad person, he is wilfully ignorant of the needs of his wife to be a person, to have help, He is , in essence, a fourth child. He does not see or value her work as work, he does not encourage her to go out, make friends, go back to work, his essential argument is that he provides all she needs-but he really doesn’t. You can see this in the disgust he has for the chaos and mess which comes from having 3 children and that he takes his food, goes off to eat on his own, never offers to help and just leaves her to it as he has been ‘working’ all day.

In the gap between who she is, and who she feels she should be, this monster creeps in and places her already fragile mental state in jeopardy.

As the novel goes back and forth between her maternal lineage, we see a picture begin to develop of curses, revenge and how a monster can feed off grief and longing. All of this is tied to the women and children of the family, and exemplified in a constellation birth mark. In trying to protect their children, the women have been driven to death, haunted by visions and a reality which does not value the worth of women, whether living in modern America or fighting in the Mexican Civil War.

This monster, who inhabits the shape of La Llorona, feeds of grief and suffering and as long as women suffer, it will have an endless food source.

It takes a lot of transformational work and reconnecti0ns to her past, to create a future where she feels she is worth living for, and there is no easy fix for Alejandra. She begins therapy with a woman who marries science with culture and spirituality , a curandera of power and strength who inspires Alejandra to speak her truth for the first time. And gives her a sense of who she really is.

There are so many powerful and moving images which pepper this extremely important novel, it highlights the unsaid, the things women are not supposed to say such as ‘my children are not enough’, ‘I don’t want to live through my children’ and deals with topics such as suicidal ideation, self harm and giving children up for adoption, or even in one case, leaving them behind to fight in the war.

None of these are traditional or accepted feelings to espouse, the constant pressure to be this mother figure without leaning into your cultural awareness of who, and what a mother is and means, how you pass this on to the next generation, is amplified by social media and culture shifts. What Alejandra and us readers do, as we go on this transformative journey, particularly when you are a mother, is to recognise it is not a failing to speak the quiet parts out loud.

La Llorona is a legendary figure associated with motherhood and murder, which is known in other cultures as the woman in white, and the apotheosis/antithesis of  what should a mother should be . What V.Castro does is return an elemental power to this legend and amplify the female, she does something quite extraordinary which transcends the words I can articulate, all I can say is I related to Alejandra so so much, when she is left no peace, no space, no room for herself as a woman and defined by her ability to reproduce, she is left longing for oblivion through death.

It’s a magnificent feat and I found it a transformative and affirming experience that I would absolutely recommend. If you haven’t read V.Castro then what the heck are you doing with your life?!

About the author…

V. Castro is a Mexican American author from San Antonio, Texas, now residing in the UK. She is a full-time mother, a Latinx literary advocate, and co-founder of Fright Girl Summer, a platform to amplify marginalized voices.

She writes Latinx novels of horror, erotic horror, and science fiction, including her most recent, ‘Goddess Of Filth’ and

Links-https://www.vvcastro.com/

Twitter @vlatinalondon @TitanBooks