Sundown in San Ojuela

Horror is not normally my thing. I very rarely read it. But the prospect of a book by a Mexican trans woman was too much to resist. Besides, MM Olivas has been mentored by none other than Nalo Hopkinson. She has to be good, right?

Lizzie Remolina is an ordinary Latina teenager from Southern California, except that one day La Muerta appears and tells her that she no longer has a soul. In return, Lizzie has acquired the power to see the dead. It is cool, in a goth kind of way, and Lizzie is a goth kind of kid. But really, it is not ideal for a teenage girl.

Obviously there has to be some reason for this. Matters come to a head when Lizzie’s beloved Aunt Marisol dies. Lizzie and her younger sister, Mary, get dragged down to the country town of San Ojuela where Marisol lived in a rambling old hacienda called Casa Coyotl. Much to her surprise, Lizzie finds that Aunt Marisol has left the house to her.

Casa Coyotl is an ancient house with a history dating back to the days when California was part of Mexico and conquistadors roamed the land. It remembers the days of the Nahuatl and the glory of Tenochtitlan.

Lizzie’s story is cut with that of two others. The first is Lucas Jackson, the local sheriff. He’s Latino by birth, trying to make his way in the Anglo world by hunting down his own people on the border. Lucas desperately wants to be a hero of law enforcement, but he may have learnt too well from his violent father.

The other viewpoint is that of Julian Zavala. When Lizzie and Mary were young, they lived with Aunt Marisol for a while. Julian and Lizzie became firm friends. But then Mrs. Remolina took her children away, preferring to raise them in a whiter environment. Julian, being a local, had nowhere to go.

There are other characters of importance, but the most significant is Xolotl, the dog-headed god of fire and lightning. In Nahuatl mythology the twin gods, Xolotl and Quetzalcoatl are guardians of the Sun. The Feathered Serpent is a god of light who guides the Sun on its path through the sky. At dusk, when the Sun descends into Mictlan, the underworld, Xolotl takes over as its guide. The book is called Sundown in San Ojuela for a reason.

Lucas, of course, knows nothing of this. He thinks he is hunting a werewolf. But Julian knows. It is in his blood. And in Lizzie’s too.

While this is a great horror set-up, the book is also very much about Southern California and the tensions between the white and Latin populations. It is probably far more relevant now than it was when it was written. But it would have been written in the previous iteration of the Dark Times when all we had to worry about was a silly wall.

One slightly odd thing about the book is that the main viewpoint characters are treated very differently in their views. Lucas’s chapters are all written in first person, perhaps to help us get inside his very conflicted head. Julian’s chapters are second person, perhaps because he is consumed with guilt and the constant “you” references reinforce this. Lizzie’s chapters are all third person. It is a bit jarring, but I think it works.

I should note also that there is strong queer representation in the book. Not all of the queer characters have happy endings, because this is Southern California, but the book cares about them all in the same way that it cares about Mexican-Americans and their Nahuatl ancestors.

This is a debut novel, and a very impressive one. I think it would appeal strongly to fans of Liz Hand. I hope it does well, because Olivas has a very different voice to what we normally get served by US publishers. I’d love to see more books from her.

Title: Sundown in San Ojuela
By: M M Olivas
Publisher: Lanternfish Press
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
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