Brenda LaTorre’s debut novel, Bruja’s Nest, follows Yolanda, a teenager growing up in a household of abuse and disorder. When her mother sends her to work as a servant at the Fernández De la Rosa estate, she plots to become the woman of the house. The book draws on horror, telenovelas, feminism, class politics, and Indigenous spiritual practices to explore her story. We spoke via email about taboo spiritual practices, her research process, and the underappreciation of telenovelas.
We edited and condensed this interview for clarity.
Priya Dames: I read that you wrote the book in the style of a telenovela. Why did you choose telenovelas as the format and inspiration for the book?
Brenda LaTorre: I chose telenovelas because I’ve always loved them. They are a big part of our culture, and I grew up watching them all the time. However, the relationship of society with telenovelas is complicated.
Most people in Mexico have watched telenovelas at some point, they are very popular, but they’re also targeted toward older women. This means they are looked down upon by many. So, I wanted to embrace and show my love for them unapologetically.
I also noticed a lot of overlap between the Gothic and telenovelas. They both use similar archetypes such as, the villain, the young woman who goes to a mansion to work or to live there, like Yolanda. There’s the old lady who works at the house but she feels like she’s the owner of the place, like Altagracia, and all of these characters that I really love. I was like, well, they appear both in the Gothic and in telenovelas so why not mix them and make a book out of it?
PD: The story is so propulsive. By the last third of the book I was just speed reading it because I just wanted to know what happened. Was the process of writing the novel also very fast?
BL: It was fast and slow at the same time. The entire process of writing a novel is like building a puzzle. There were moments when the writing went really fast, but then I had to rewrite great portions of the book.
For example, in the early drafts, Yolanda was a passive character, and horrible things happened to her. Then, I realized I wanted to write about a woman who did things, and the horrible things that happened to her were partially due to the decisions she made. Like the horrible pregnancy that resulted from going to the bruja’s house.
In total it took me about two years to finish writing Bruja’s Nest, but the speed and amount of work varied from day to day.
PD: I also noticed the book had strong horror elements in it. What drew you to horror as a genre to tell this particular story? Do you have any favorite horror writers?
BL: I’ve loved horror all my life, even as a kid. I think in part it’s because my mother hates horror. She’s very Catholic so she didn’t like me watching horror movies and reading horror books so I would sneak around to read them.
Later in life, when I started writing seriously I began to study other writers. One of my biggest inspirations was Shirley Jackson, “We Have Always Lived in the Castle,” is my favorite book. One thing that I really love about it is the protagonists who are similar to Yolanda in many ways. They are secluded and they live in their mansion but it’s a mansion that’s also crumbling down. Their family has died but they are also not great people, and I wanted to mirror that.
I also really love Gabino Iglesias. He wrote “The Devil Takes You Home.” The book is set in both Mexico and the United States, and the way that he describes some of the problems that we face in real life like crime, drug smuggling, and things like that are all present in the book without setting horror aside.
Mariana Enríquez does that too. Since I love horror, I didn’t want the horror to get lost in my ideas. I wanted both things to be present in the book. The ideas and social critique, but blended with the horror genre.
PD: What was your process for researching the story?
BL: I usually start by writing the story to discover what is it that I want to write about. It’s usually during revisions when I ask myself, “What are the things I don’t know much about, and may sound fake?”
For this novel, I ended up taking a taxidermy class, because I didn’t know anything about taxidermy, and I really wanted to have a taxidermist in the novel. One of my favorite movies is Psycho, I was always captivated by Norman Bates and his stuffed birds, and I wanted to pay homage to it.
The class was very interesting and I also took notes about how the teacher spoke and expressed herself around the work. I found it interesting because it was like an artistic experience but you’re also handling bodies and so it’s also kind of grotesque. But I loved how used phrases such as, “Look at how beautiful the specimen is,” and “please pay attention to the form inside of the bird.” I wanted to replicate that adoration of the taxidermy process in the book.
I also wrote a paper, that is not published on Santa Muerte. Santa Muerte is a very taboo topic here in Mexico. I think in part because she is the folk saint of the marginalized and that also means that a lot of people related to the criminal life worship her. And, it’s a folk Catholicism practice, outside of the Catholic institution, so the Catholic authorities disapprove strongly of people worshipping her.
You aren’t allowed to even speak her name sometimes. If you mention Santa Muerte in a restaurant, the servers, and everyone around, will stare at you. I was very intrigued because I knew of her existence but it’s not openly talked about. So I wanted to research more about her. I went to some places where she’s worshipped and I talked to some people.
I also found academic papers about Santa Muerte and, in the end, the research opened my eyes and lifted the taboo. I found that she’s heavily worshipped by Latiné people in the U.S. it’s not as taboo as here.
PD: That ties into my next question, actually. I know that throughout Latin America and the Caribbean syncretic traditions such as Voodoo, Obeah, and Brujería have a similar taboo surrounding them. How did you balance those concerns while writing and knowing the book was going to be published?
BL: Mexico is a Catholic country but there’s also a lot of syncretism between Catholicism and old indigenous practices. For example, we have the Day of the Dead where we place altars with food for the dead to come and that’s an indigenous practice. But then you place a Catholic cross at the very top.
So, there’s always been some things that the church allows in order for people to keep following them and things that they simply don’t. One of the things that helped me was thinking of the public and where the book would be published. I felt way more free knowing that it would be for an American audience and that I could put things as I see them and explain to them how I understand my own culture.
PD: There is also a reclamation of the word “bruja” itself throughout the story. Was there a reason why you wanted to show that arc for the protagonist?
BL: Yes, definitely. Just like Santa Muerte, brujeria is very, very taboo here. People believe in it. There’s a big market called the Mercado de Sonora where they sell animals for sacrifices. There’s this layer of people who say not to go there. Then, sometimes those same people go in secret to the mercado to consult brujas.
There’s even been some scandals about politicians consulting brujas. Brujas here fearead, and looked down upon so a lot of brujas call themselves, like in the book, curanderos, which are like herbalists to cover up.
But I thought that since being a bruja is such a powerful thing and mostly practiced by women, the stigma probably comes from being afraid of powerful women. The brujas having to hide themselves is kind of sad so I wanted them to, by the end, say “No, this is who we are and you might think it’s awful but it’s not. We are just powerful and allowed to reclaim that power.”
PD: Are there any projects that you’re working on right now that you’re looking forward to?
BL: I’m working on a gastro-horror novel set in Mexico City. Even though it’s very developed and we have chain stores and whatnot, there’s also this cultural aspect that follows us. There are brujas and people who read your fortune in the street, and the mystical is present, despite the capitalist setup of a city. I want to show more of this urban space where there’s also horror and mysticism. And there’s also going to be an evil chef involved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Brenda LaTorre is a Mexico City native and holds an MFA from the University of Southern Maine and a Creative Writing Certificate from UCSD. Her stories have found a home in places such as Pyre Magazine, the Your Body, My Rage anthology, the Collective Visions anthology, and more. She was Editor of Popular Fiction for the Stonecoast Review magazine and is currently a writing mentor in the WriteHive Mentorship Program. Bruja’s Nest is her first novel.
ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER: Priya Dames is a writer and journalist. Her work has been featured in SISTORIES, The News & Observer, and Triad City Beat. In addition to her journalism, Priya writes short stories. She is the founder of the BIPOC Writing Group, a biweekly workshop at Scuppernong Books.