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Edwin de la Cruz: Hi, listeners. I'm Edwin, an editor here at Audible. Today I'm speaking with Isabel Cañas, author of last year's debut, The Hacienda, and now out with her second novel, Vampires of El Norte. This gripping listen is told from the point of view of two main characters, Nena and Néstor, close childhood friends torn apart by a horrific event. We follow them years later as they find each other once again, as adults, and must face and battle for survival against monsters, both supernatural and human. Welcome, Isabel.
Isabel Cañas: Thank you so much for having me, Edwin! I'm delighted to speak with you today.
EC: Glad you're here. So, Isabel, both your debut, The Hacienda, and Vampires of El Norte take place during the aftermath of the Mexican War for Independence. What is it about this time period that fascinates you?
IC: This period of history interested me first of all because it was one that isn't really taught in the US school system. It's not something I encountered in my school-age years or when I went away to university, because I studied completely different topics. It was something that had interested me personally, having lived in Mexico as a kid and then returning to the US. It's just a massive lacuna in terms of pop culture's awareness of Mexico—there’s a certain bent, if you will, to the way that Mexico and Mexican history are portrayed in media these days. And with Vampires of El Norte in particular, I was drawn to the story of the Mexican-American War because my mom's family is from Texas. They've been in South Texas for generations, and in northern Mexico.
In my PhD program, which is full of historians, we had a conference in San Antonio. A bunch of my friends, who are historians of the Middle East—which is a topic where you talk a lot about empire and narrative, and the way that history is written—went, and one of them posted on Instagram with photos of the Alamo and the saying, "Remember the Alamo." It ticked me off. I was like, “You guys, you're so sharp about studying empire when it's far away, but not when it’s right here on American soil.” Consider the Alamo. It's something that I think about a lot in my writing—looking at the way that history has been written from the American point of view and twisting it a little bit, showing the other side of the story. The experiences of Mexicans who were living in Texas in the 1840s are so traumatic when you think about it, because they were the citizens of an independent country, of Mexico, and in 1848, after the end of the Mexican-American War, an enormous part of the Southwest, from South Texas all the way to California, suddenly became a part of the United States. And so, my ancestors living in South Texas suddenly found themselves the citizens of an invading country. A hostile country. It's a period in history where borders moved and people didn't; identities shifted and things changed. And it's fascinating to me, as a historian, as a person whose family comes from this region, and as a reader.
EC: I think you capture that quite well with the looming, shall we say, terrors coming.
IC: Yeah. (laughs) There's a lot of metaphors to unpack there.
EC: Yes. Following up on that, Vampires of El Norte is told with an alternating narration between Nena and Néstor. What interested you about following them so closely?
IC: As a reader, I am most drawn to stories that have a deep point of view. Think about horror, in particular. When you're watching a horror movie, for example, cozied up on your couch or in your movie theater seat, there are jump scares. There's music that builds. You know, there's a lot of elements that create a multi-sensory experience and heighten your fear and get your adrenaline racing and make your heart pound. It's terrifying. (laughs) I'm such a weenie when it comes to horror movies, but that’s the kind of experience you're in for. When it comes to novels, when you're listening to a novel or you're reading a novel, what do you have? You have words. You have either the printed page or the actors performing the story. And I find with the most successful horror novels—well, successful novels for me, in general, because I'm this kind of reader, but especially horror novels—being deeply embedded in a character's point of view is essential for making the creepiness and the atmosphere jump off the page, or jump into your ears when you're listening.
"Being deeply embedded in a character's point of view is essential for making the creepiness and the atmosphere jump off the page, or jump into your ears when you're listening."
When it comes to following the storylines of both Nena and Néstor, and being deeply in their heads—that's kind of how characters come to me anyway—it's something I'm very aware of as a writer, because I'm dealing with a medium where I'm kind of telling the story with my hands tied behind my back. All you have are the words. All you have are sentences. So, how are you going to make this scary for the reader? I think it's by tying it very closely to the characters' experience. Because then you, as the reader, get put right in their shoes, and you walk alongside them through the dark, and hopefully, you get nice and creeped out. (laughs)
EC: Well, that's exactly what happens to both these characters as they're kids, right? When they leave the house in search of silver. I see what you mean there. Following up on Néstor and Nena, there are clear class divisions between the two. Could you expand on that?
IC: Yeah. In the world of the Rancho Los Ojuelos [the name of the ranch in the novel, which is set in Los Ojuelos, a town in Southern Texas], there is a pretty clear upstairs and downstairs, if you will. The Spanish crown gave land grants to wealthy men, who then ended up owning big chunks of Texas in the form of ranches. And these were passed down from generation to generation, and they were their own little ecosystems, so to speak. For landowners, some of them came directly from Spain, and so were a part of that peninsular class. In The Hacienda, I talk a lot about the casta system, which is the caste system of the colonial Americas, whereby one's lot in life was deeply determined by their racial makeup. That is less at play here, but what is at play is the fact that Nena is the daughter of the landowner, and Néstor is the nephew of a vaquero [Mexico’s native cowboys] who works for that landowner. And the class of people to which Néstor belongs are those of the peons. They are the workers.
In the case of Néstor's family, when I was doing research for this book—which was super fun and also extremely difficult compared to The Hacienda, surprisingly—I came across the fact that there were a lot of workers from places in Mexico like San Luis Potosí and Michoacán who moved north to where these new land grants were being established as ranches, because they were promised work.
These were people who were poorer than the landowners, who had more of an Indigenous background, and ended up in that area because they were looking for work, as opposed to being handed a big old chunk of land by the king of Spain. So, there was a bit of a like, "Ooh, he's from the other side of the tracks," kind of romance going on between Nena and Néstor, in which she, being the daughter of a landowner, really should marry the son of another landowner. And that creates some tension in their romance, and it's the kind of candy that I will eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if you let me.
EC: Those of us who grew up on Mexican telenovelas see this as a trope, right? And many people cite Pygmalion as an inspiration for those things. But little do they know that these things go back in Mexican culture many years. So this is quite interesting. Speaking about these two principal characters, let's talk about the narration. I really love how the narrators bring your characters to life. Can you tell us about the two narrators, Krysta Gonzales and Jose Nateras?
IC: You know, I am so picky when it comes to my audiobooks. If I find a narrator I love, I will follow them to the ends of the world. And I know there are listeners out there like me. You know, sometimes you pick up an audiobook, and it just doesn't sing for you because the performance isn't clicking with the way that you're experiencing the world as a reader? Anyway, I get very passionate about the selection of narrators. I don't look up the actors at all, and I just listen. And with Jose, I knew that was it. That was it. There was just a little bit of a bad boy edge to his voice, and his performance was impeccable. I was like, "Done. I'm sold."
For the voice of Nena, it was a little trickier, because I wanted her to sound young but also raring to go. She's a young woman who really wants to break away and take ownership and agency over her life and her independence. And so, I wanted a performance that really conveyed that, and I think Krysta nailed it. I haven't listened to the whole thing. I'm so excited to. (laughs) But I'm really, really happy with the auditions that Berkeley sent my way. I've had a wonderful experience with them, because they send me auditions by people who are Latine, who are either specifically Mexican-American or Mexican, or who have other Latinx background, and it makes me delighted. Delighted. Because I have listened to audiobooks that are set in South America, but the narrator has that Spain Spanish accent. You know? It just shatters the suspension of belief for me. So, I really wanted to find actors who keep the listener suspended in the world and really immersed in it, and I think these two in particular nailed it. I'm so excited.
EC: Well, I'll tell you that in the moment where they meet up again after the tragic events, they absolutely nailed it. She, especially. She comes across as incredibly independent. You'll definitely love it.
IC: Oh, I'm blushing. I'm so excited. I lived writing those scenes. It was a delight. I cannot wait to hear them performed. And as a writer, I think there's just something so transcendent about listening to the audiobook of your work, something so special. It feels... You know, I'm a new mother. I have a three-month-old who's screaming in the next room. (laughs) My poor mother-in-law's taking care of her. But I can imagine as she grows up, watching her move through the world, [being] like, "Oh my god. That's something I made, living its own little life. Moving out there." And I feel that a bit when it comes to the audiobooks of my work. With The Hacienda, when it came out, it was like, "Oh, yay! A book. I made it. Hurray!" But when my husband started listening to the audiobook, I thought to myself, "Oh my god. It's real. It's out there, and it's speaking for itself." It's incredible, so I'm very excited.
EC: Well, speaking of Néstor and Nena, that slow build of tension between them is one of my favorite parts of the novel. What was your favorite part about writing their push-pull dynamic?
IC: I think my favorite part about writing these two characters in particular was how they just took off in my mind. There are some books that come to me plot forward. With The Hacienda, it was like, okay—the concept of the haunted house came first, and then the characters came in later. With Vampires of El Norte, Néstor walked into my mind fully formed. He was a lesser character in another book, and I had to strip the book for parts, chuck it out the window, and just take him (laughs) and start all over again, because I was like, "Well, here he is." Fully fleshed out with a really strong voice.
And with Nena, she came second. You know, in the book, they grow up together, and for me as characters, I'm realizing now, literally speaking to you, Edwin, they came into themselves because of one another. They started talking to each other in my head, and it was always back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And so, they have a lot of arguments over the course of this book. They have a lot of push and pull, because they're both very headstrong people who have beliefs about the world that they're very passionate about. And so, when they butt heads, they butt heads. (laughs) And when Nena gets pissed, she gets pissed. And sometimes, they say hurtful things to one another.
I hadn't written a dynamic like that before, and it just sang, honestly, in the first drafting. The part of the book where I was just writing the first draft, it was incredible. It was a little magical. I will say, there were parts of writing this book that absolutely busted my butt. The journey from original seed of an idea to finished project is the longest journey I have ever been on for any book I have ever written, and I never want to do it again. (laughs) If I must, I will. But did I enjoy it the whole time? (laughs) I got a little burnt out. But the beginning, writing the first draft and writing potential scenes of them together, trying out different storylines with them... It’s one of those things where, you know, being a writer, you listen to other people's voices in your heads all the time, and I felt like I was really starting to lose my marbles with this one. (laughs) They were yammering away all day in my head. It was a delight.
EC: Well, I can tell, because every chapter is Néstor, Nena, Néstor, Nena. Or Néstor, Néstor, Nena. (laughs)
IC: Yeah, yelling at each other. You know? (laughs)
EC: I love that cadence in it. Turning to the fantastical and magic realism element, Nena's curandera [a healer who uses folk remedies, particularly where medical doctors were scarce]—I believe that is just one of the many Mexican folklore myths you touch upon in the novel. What were some of the essential ones you felt you needed to include here?
IC: So, the essentials. I knew I wanted my vampires to be very different from ye olde European derivative vampires. And I will say, I am, first and foremost, a Dracula fangirl. I remember reading it under the desk in AP US History when I was 17 years old—I remember exactly where I was sitting, reading this book under the desk, because I was just so spellbound I could not stop. And then I read Twilight because I was, you know, 17, and that's when it was being published, and I have a deep fondness for vampires. But I knew I wanted my bloodsuckers to be very different.
So, I delved into research, and what I found in researching was a bunch of different strains of folklore that I could have followed. There are legends in central Mexico of beings called Tlahuelpuchis [in Mexican folklore, a bloodsucking witch with lycanthropy powers, which is able to shape-shift and sucks the blood of infants at night], and I could have gone down that route. They're fascinating. I think you could tell a story with a real feminist bend talking about those. But I think what I was vibing with for this particular story was something more monstrous, and so I reached for El-Cucuí (laughs), or El Cuco [a mythical ghost-like monster, equivalent to the boogeyman, found in many Latin American cultures]. I really wanted a boogeyman. Something that was larger than life. I kind of wanted to go more the cryptozoology route when it came to my vampires. And my younger sister, when she first read the book, was like, "Isabel, is this just, like, a big, bad chupacabra?" And I was like, "Well, it's not not that." (laughs) There are little bits and pieces everywhere.
One of the essential things I did want to include, in terms of my Mexican background and how that specifically informs the speculative aspects of this novel, is the fact that when I was talking to my grandma about El Cuco—I remember there was one day I sat down with her and my grandpa, and I was like, "Okay, give me the scary stories." (laughs) And my grandma said, "Well, yeah, El Cuco is scary. But you know what was scarier? My mother." (laughs) When she was growing up, she was like, "All my dad had to do was say, 'I will tell your mother.'" She was the big bad guy. That actually did inform the writing of this book.
"I think there's so much about being Mexican in general that just drips gothic vibes."
There are very high stakes in the novel. Yes, there's the stake of, "Oh my god, there is a bloodsucking monster out there that might attack us, and that is..." No spoilers! But there is a threat to both her and her way of life encapsulated in these monsters, and also her parents and her place in the family. I think when it comes to writing, my characters are deeply informed by their families, and the frankly patriarchal dynamics of the Mexican family. And other books lean more into religion, like The Hacienda, and some of my future work will definitely be going hard on that aspect of being raised Mexican. But for this book, you know who's scarier than El Cuco? Nena's parents. (laughs)
EC: You mentioned the patriarchal side of things here, and definitely, we see, or we feel, Nena calling from her grandmother's curandera powers as she's trying to revive a vaquero. Let's not spoil it for listeners. But the concept of curanderos comes up quite often in Vampires of El Norte. You root for Nena every time she needs to work her powers, and this is one of the magical aspects of it that resonated with me in the novel.
IC: Mm-hmm.
EC: Let’s talk about imperialism. The specter of imperialism is ever so present in the novel, so much so that the titular vampires are sometimes in the periphery and other times, the threat is very human—yet there's a clear connection between the two. Can you talk about what you wanted to explore in approaching both the vampiric and the imperialist elements of the novel?
IC: Absolutely. To me they're one and the same, and this is why. When I was first trying to write this book, and failing to write this book—because, you know, I had these characters yammering away in my head all the time, but that does not a novel make, unfortunately; if it did, this book would've come out months ago—I went to my mom's house in Chicago. Her living room is floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and she has one shelf in particular that's devoted to the history of Mexico and of Texas. I was perusing her books, just sniffing around for stuff, kind of in that exploratory phase of research, where I just wanted to fill the well with things that could inform the book, because it wasn't taking off. It really wasn't taking a shape, and I wasn't really sure if I was shoehorning in the vampires or not. I couldn't tell if it was working or not, which was a bit of a problem because I had sold my publisher a vampire novel. (laughs) So, I was in a bit of a bind, and I came across a quote by a Tejano politician [Tejano refers to Texans descended from colonists of the Spanish colonial period, before 1821, or from Indigenous Mexicans] from the 19th century called Cheno Cortina, in a letter he wrote.
In the 1850s, South Texas had, after the Mexican War of Independence, become a part of the United States, or a part of Texas. So, there was a lot of Anglo settlers coming in and taking land by nefarious means. Sometimes using fraud, sometimes taking advantage of the fact that Mexicans did not understand English or a lot of them didn't speak English—with the legal documents and landholding documents, there was a lot of cloak and dagger business going on there in terms of acquiring land. And sometimes by murder, unfortunately.
So, this politician, Cheno Cortina, is sometimes called the Rio Grande Robin Hood. (laughs) Because he was a politician, yes, and a rancher, but he was also an outlaw. And he wrote a letter that was published... I can't remember in which publication, but in 1859, he wrote, of the Anglo settlers who were coming into Texas, "Flocks of vampires came and scattered themselves among the settlements." You know? "Because your industry excited their avarice, and they wanted to take what is yours." And he goes on and on and on.
But that line made the hairs on my arms stand up, and they're standing up now actually, because he said "flocks of vampires." In 1859, this man living in the place that I was writing about called these invaders, these people who were coming to take the land of the Mexicans, vampires. And suddenly, I knew. I'm not shoehorning in my vampires. And it absolutely boggled my mind. I wanted a historian to email me to say, "Actually, this is by Cheno Cortina, who used the phrase 'vampires.'" I looked it up, because I was like, 1859? That was before the publication of Dracula, wasn't it? It was before the publication of Carmilla. It was before Marx and Engels used the metaphor "vampire" to talk about capital and the landowning class. You know? Decades and thousands of miles away. And yet, this man called them vampires. The book took off after that. Because there is something about empire and research extraction and exploitation that, you know, you can't have one without the other. So, it was very interesting to me that I found this quote, because I was like, "Wow. There's the book, folks." (laughs)
EC: I don't even know what to say after that. (laughs) Um, okay. I read your interview with the Horror Writers Association, where you were asked about Latino representation in horror fiction, and you praised Mexican Gothic, and rightly so, because I love that book too. I'm curious as to where you see this representation going in the future.
IC: I want it to explode. I want it to just dominate. I think there's so much about being Mexican in general that just drips gothic vibes. Like, Dia de Muertos,for one. Duh, it's the low-hanging fruit. But the Catholicism, the performance, the baroque. The history with colonialism. The secrets. There's some dark folklore. And then even pushing past that to the pre-Hispanic period—there's just a wealth of material for writers to draw on. There's the phrase, "Send the elevator back down," or "Keep the door open behind you." I absolutely do. (laughs)
I started a scholarship for Latine writers at the Clarion West Writers Workshop, which is for writers of both short fiction and novels, for fantasy, sci-fi and horror. Four writers have gotten it in the last two years, and two of them in particular, who did the workshop last year, have incredible work.
So, I just want to throw the doors open behind me to bring in all the Latine talent in the horror writing community. 'Cause it's out there. We're out there telling these stories, and publishing has just turned around and noticed. Like, "Ah, Mexican Gothic sold kinda well, didn't it? Let's do that again." (laughs) And I'm like, "Please, do it again and again and again." Because we have a wealth of stories. We have so many voices that are ready to rise to the top, ready to burst forth and blow people out of the water if you just give them the chance. So, that's what I want going forward—I want more, more, more, more, more. You know? I'm greedy. (laughs)
EC: My follow-up question was actually going to be: What is it that you think about this genre that resonates so much with the audience, with listeners, rather?
IC: Well, I'll tell you why I became really drawn to horror at a particular time in my life, and I think it is true for other listeners and readers as well. I got really into horror, and I wrote The Hacienda, during the very first bit of lockdown in April 2020. That's when I finished writing The Hacienda. And I think it's because I needed escapism. I needed a certain kind of escapism that I hadn't needed before.
Before, I was, first and foremost, a fantasy writer. I'm a big fantasy reader. You know, that's my bread and butter—always fantasy. And suddenly, I found myself at a part of my life where I couldn't focus on the world that had brought me escapism before. I couldn't shut out the anxiety that was plaguing me, because the drug wasn't hitting the right way, you know? And I reached for horror, and it gave me a safe place to be worried about something else. To be scared by something else. It provided me a stronger hit of escapism, so to speak. So, I think that is partially why horror is appealing to readers or to listeners—it hits different when you're at certain parts in your life.
And now, as a new mother, my attention span is absolutely shot. The time I have to read is more limited than it was before. And I found myself, in the postpartum haze in the early days of my maternity leave, picking up books and putting them down. Picking up books and putting them down. And do you know what's holding my attention these days? Horror. I think it's because it just seizes you by the throat, and it doesn't let you go. So, I'm kind of in my Stephen Graham Jones era. I just read Mongrels, and I absolutely adored it.
But horror is also a very mercurial genre in that it wears a lot of different faces. Horror is almost like a mood that you can bring to any genre. It's a filter you can bring to any genre. So, I bring it to historical. You can bring it to fantasy. You can bring it to sci-fi. There's a book that just came out called Whalefall—I’m sure everybody's talking about it. It's about a man who gets eaten by a whale (laughs), and he has an hour to get out, basically. It's wild. I'm so excited to read it. But that's a very realistic take. I think horror appeals to listeners because there are just so many different takes. There's a place for everybody in horror.
EC: I read a great review of the novel recently on Goodreads, where you're crowned, and I quote, "the queen of gothic horror." Will we see more of this genre from you?
IC: Yes, sir. I can't get enough. I just can't quit it. I just can't quit it. I am not at liberty to speak much—at all, really—about my future projects, but I have two very special somethings in the works that will be making their way into the world in the future that I really go hard on the gothic. I think Vampires of El Norte, I would brand less gothic, more western, more horror, more historical, more romance. Because when I think gothic—there are certain trappings of the genre, if you want to get very traditional about it, that involve a young woman who's kind of an ingenue, a big house, some dark secrets. Vampires of El Norte muscles out of that a little bit, because it has a road trip. (laughs) And it has war. But definitely, the imagery is very informed by my love of the gothic. The language, I think, is very informed by my love of the gothic. But future projects of mine will be insufferably gothic. I am very excited about them. (laughs)
EC: I'm sure our audience is loving this already. (laughs) Well, Isabel, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so happy that you came and chatted with us.
IC: Thank you so much, Edwin. It's really been a joy to chat with you.
EC: And listeners, you can get Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas now on Audible.
