Velvet was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Review of Velvet was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
“Love, frail as gossamer, stitched together from a thousand songs and a thousand comic books, made of the dialogue spoken in films and the posters designed by ad agencies: love was what she lived for.”
Velvet was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2021). Published by Del Rey.
This is another one of those books that I’ve seen floating all around book Instagram, Twitter, and on the book blog world. And so when I saw that my local library had a copy available on Libby, I knew it was time to actually come and get it. Although I pretty much knew nothing about the plot, I was really curious specifically by the title. I wasn’t into the cover (the North American one with the girl smoking) because it came across to me as something that was chicklit, probably a bit of danger. And I was right, there was quite a bit of danger. But the title is what convinced me at the end of the day—I’m a sucker for both velvet and nighttime.
And I will say, having not read the premise beforehand and only saw people’s hype, I was both intrigued by the story as well as disappointed. I’m going to dig deeper into this during the review, but for now I’ll say that I’m someone very interested by Mexican history, but I don’t really know anything about the country past the 1930s and the Revolution. I know a bit about the cinema scene, but that’s it. This book felt like a good primer, albeit fictional in aspects, about what happened during the 1970s.
I feel like I’ve said a lot, so let’s get into this review.
Content
The year is 1971, and, based off of a real event that happened in Mexico City at the time, students are revolting against the government. The result is a crackdown of gangs coming in to stop the students, which has led to widespread death and violence. Our main character, Maite, is twenty-seven and could not care less for what’s going on. She has bills to pay, a secretary job at a law firm, and is living alone. She gets pulled into a mess, however, when her rich neighbor, an art student, goes mysteriously missing and Maite is stuck caring for her cat and has been stiffed of the money she earned in the process.
Narrators in this novel switch between Maite and a guy merely known as Elvis, whose backstory is that he was from a poor family, dropped out of school, and ultimately became a gangster. We switch between the two almost every chapter, their worlds originally seeming completely separate, but then they collide when a particular person of interest appears for both Maite and Elvis’ gang: Leonara, the rich neighbor who has now disappeared. Leonara seems to have caught something on her camera from the student revolt, something that can expose the corruption going on in the government, which has led her to flee without a word.
My qualms with this novel lies in the split narration system that the author has going on. I understand that it gives important context for the readers that isn’t given in the opposite narrative (for example, at the beginning, we learn that the gangs have come after people taking pictures specifically during the protests, like journalists, because photographs are evidence of the crime), but it feels like there’s this forced thread in how Elvis and Maite have to distantly interact.
They are united by their love of good music, but that seems to be it. According to the author, music is specifically woven in because of this: “The Mexican government was engaged in the suppression of rock music in Mexico at the same time it was attacking students and activists.” And perhaps Elvis’ obsession in music was because he was rebelling against everything he knew to become this way, even if he doesn’t appreciate the way of life anymore. But Maite is complicit until she isn’t, and then she almost seems to make revolutionary love like a fetish at one point in the novel, after she sleeps with Ruben and envisions what revolutionaries do.
All of the characters are lonely in their own ways; Maite is relatable as she delves into the world of romance novels and comics, desperately seeking an escape from her mundane reality. She also keeps bringing up men and how often she would bring them back home (aka: not often), which came off as a bit crass to me, although I know many, many people like this. I just personally am not into romance, so I come into this with a bias. The romance in this book felt a bit half-baked though, as too much focus in on the disappearance of Leonara. It also felt like Ruben and Maite getting together was kind of weird, but also predictable because of how desperate both seemed to be.
I just wasn’t invested in the story as much as I wanted to be. The split narration didn’t allow me to get invested in either character, and while I felt like I learned a lot about the Mexican Dirt War, the story itself fell flat. Like Leonara is eventually found, but nothing really happens. I felt like with all the tension and surprise I expected something much grander and bigger, but then the first story just fizzles out.
Overall Thoughts
Personally, I probably will now try to explore novels and nonfiction in the realm of this era of Mexican history, but this book just didn’t do it for me. The writing is fine, but the narration style wasn’t my cup of tea and I didn’t feel connected enough to the characters to actually feel like I cared enough for them and their wellbeing. I honestly thought the female lead was a bit boring at times, which is better for the story because it shows that she actually is just this normal woman off the streets. It also felt too repetitive at times—like we get it, he likes music, she’s lonely, Emilio is attractive. We get it.
