Velvet Was The Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
(Jo Fletcher Books, 2021)
Reviewed by Anne F. Wilson
This novel is set in Mexico City during the early 70s, in the aftermath of the Corpus Christi Massacre of June 1971, seen through the eyes of two bit-players. The CIA-supported government is being challenged by left-wing students. Elvis is a member of the Hawks, a group of thugs whose aim is to harass and hinder journalists reporting on the protests. Maite is a secretary, asked to cat-sit by a neighbour who has disappeared. The narrative teases us as the two almost meet several times but are whirled apart by events.
Maite is turning 30, bored by her job, unconfident in her appearance, and easily bullied by her co-workers. She makes up stories about her love-life to avoid their pity. Dumped by her last serious boyfriend, she finds solace in romance comics, and practises a small-scale kleptomania whereby she steals trivial items from acquaintances that she admires, hoping magically to absorb the owners’ capabilities.
Elvis, 21, has been spat out by the education system, but still looks young enough to be a student (important for an agitator). He doesn’t enjoy beating up people, but sees no other options for improving his life. Following the massacre, Elvis is appointed leader of his sub-group, and tasked with finding a roll of film shot by Maite’s neighbour, Leonora. Leonora turns out to be a member of a left-wing artists’ collective. As Elvis digs deeper into their activities he is drawn into increasing brutality and violence.
We see the politics from the point of view of two people who haven’t thought deeply about them. Maite worries about her love-life and making ends meet. Elvis, trying to improve himself by learning a new word every day, loves American music.
The novel’s title comes from the song that Elvis finds on the turntable when he breaks into Maite’s apartment in search of the film, and it is the music that forms a bond between these two people who have yet to meet.
I enjoyed the novel. The plot is well-crafted and fits together neatly. Maite and Elvis both need to find Leonora, Elvis to retrieve the film, Maite to get paid for cat-sitting. Some of the plot mechanics may depend a bit too much on coincidence, but the author wants to show the high-level machinations of the government, which, given Elvis and Maite’s lowly social standings, would have been difficult to demonstrate otherwise.
Neither of the protagonists is entirely likeable, but I found them believable and sympathetic. The novel alternates between their viewpoints: Elvis day-dreaming of a cosy, safe little apartment at the end of the tunnel, Maite failing to notice that her fantasies of romance and adventure are becoming dangerously real.
The author was born and raised in Mexico, and this is partly an account of where she comes from. She conveys the atmosphere of Mexico City through food, drink and cigarettes, using Mexican words and brand names. We visit Café La Habana, where Fidel Castro and Che Guevara used to hang out. She also describes sexual harassment of women on the buses, an everyday problem. The author was born ten years after the events described in the novel, but her parents would have lived through them.
Although Moreno-Garcia has written SFF, this book stands squarely within modern history, and has no futuristic or fantastic elements. The novel is billed as noir, meaning a crime drama, “particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations” (Wikipedia). There is indeed cynicism and brutality, and one definitely gets the idea that Mexican politics are a theatre where the Americans and the Russians play out their proxy wars. The fully armed and armoured police resolutely stand on the sidelines as Elvis’s gang attacks students and journalists. But there is also hope, if not for Mexican politics, at least for the characters that we have come to care about.
Review from BSFA Review 17 - Download your copy here.