A Review of Isabel Cañas’s Vampires of El Norte (Berkeley 2023)

[lsobiesk]

Written by Stephen Hong Sohn

Edited by Lizzy Sobiesk

As you know, at AALF, we have occasionally turned our lenses on other BIPOC and ethnic minority writers! Such is the case here, as we review Isabel Cañas’s Vampires of El Norte (Berkeley 2023), which is AALF’s sponsored Halloween read for 2024. Yes, we’re a year late with this title, but you can’t beat Vampires of El Norte for an appropriately chilling Halloween read. Cañas is also author of The Hacienda, which is certainly another good option. In any case, here is the official marketing blurb: “As the daughter of a rancher in 1840s Mexico, Nena knows a thing or two about monsters—her home has long been threatened by tensions with Anglo settlers from the north. But something more sinister lurks near the ranch at night, something that drains men of their blood and leaves them for dead. Something that once attacked Nena nine years ago. Believing Nena dead, Néstor has been on the run from his grief ever since, moving from ranch to ranch working as a vaquero. But no amount of drink can dispel the night terrors of sharp teeth; no woman can erase his childhood sweetheart from his mind. When the United States invades Mexico in 1846, the two are brought abruptly together on the road to war: Nena as a curandera, a healer striving to prove her worth to her father so that he does not marry her off to a stranger, and Néstor as a member of the auxiliary cavalry of ranchers and vaqueros. But the shock of their reunion—and Nena’s rage at Néstor for seemingly abandoning her long ago—is quickly overshadowed by the appearance of a nightmare made flesh. And unless Nena and Néstor work through their past and face the future together, neither will survive to see the dawn.”

 

So, I’m going to be entirely frank here: the horror intensity of the novel is not necessarily on the highest level, though there are definitely some dreadful and terrifying sequences. Cañas is admittedly balancing a lot. This novel is a not only a historical fiction, but it’s also a frontier romance, a western, and a kind of supernatural horror novel all rolled into one. It’s not easy to cultivate each of these areas. Of these various elements, I do think Cañas is most successful in the romance narrative department, as we are no doubt rooting for Nena and Néstor, and they come from different class backgrounds, making their pairing all the more difficult. What the two have going for them is that they are willing to have each other’s backs in the most difficult of circumstances. Whether they are battling for their land against the yanquis, trying to fend off the supernatural evil that are vampires, or going up against the social mores that demand that the two find other partners, Cañas has us cheering for these leads. I sometimes teach a monster theory reading, and what’s interesting to me about this novel is that Cañas, like many other BIPOC writers, is somewhat skeptical of any essentialized villainy. Indeed, in this novel’s case, even something as terrifying as supernatural vampires is undermined the conclusion. We are left to consider the possibility that the bloodsucking might of these creatures may have been harnessed by the yanquis and that these monsters may simply be a variation on a type of large animal who possesses a particularly strong predatory instinct, something more akin to a lizard or shark rather than something too strange or alien. Ultimately, Cañas’s text is immensely readable and perfectly appropriate to consume in the lead-up to Halloween. Frightful and romantic somehow all at the same time!

Buy the Book Here