Guest Reviewer: Piñata Breaks Into Speculative Realms

Review: Piñata. Leopoldo Gout. A Nightfire Book Published by Tom Doherty Association/Tor Publishing Group

By  Rey M. Rodríguez

In Piñata, written by Leopoldo Gout, Carmen Sánchez, an architect and single mom, travels to Tulancingo, Hidalgo, Mexico, to oversee the renovation of an ancient abbey with her daughters, 11-year-old Luna and 16-year-old Izel.  

 

Soon after their arrival strange and unexplainable events occur, like the appearance of an old, monstrous-faced woman who keeps watch over the family; the discovery of a hidden room in the abbey where a Nahua piñata is found; and the sighting of terrifying apparitions that all preface the chaos that is to come.

I read this book with curiosity, as a writer, because I, too, want to ground my work of fiction in history prior to the Spanish invasion of Mexico, specifically highlighting the Popol Vuh, the creation story of the Maya.  

 

Gout’s book provided me with a model to uplift my narrative and do it in a respectful, thoughtful and entertaining way.  The manner in which he addresses current problems and links them to historical trauma that has far too often been ignored or dismissed, served as a useful approach for what I am trying to do with my writing.

Gout sets the stage for his horror story in the atrocities, massacres, murders, rapes enslavements, and all manner of brutalities inflicted by the Spanish upon the indigenous people of Mexico.  

 

It is with this backdrop that the book’s prologue invites the reader to begin to understand this past, drawing the reader in to make a direct connection between the planting of the original seed of racism 500 years ago and society’s current situation.  

 

Gout entertains and enlightens the reader by effectively using Nahua history that has previously been erased, discounted and misunderstood. Gout welcomes the reader to think biculturally and in this book actually tri-culturally: as a Nahua, Mexican, and United States citizen.  

 

The book begins with a quotation, “Listen carefully to the rhythms of your tongue so that they don’t get lost in memory.”  In Nahuatl it reads, “Tikahaki in tlatsotsonalistli itech thlahtoltsin inik amo polihwi ipan ilnalmiki.”  

 

The invocation to listen with intention reminds the reader that for too long the historians of the victors whitewashed Mexico’s barbaric past labeling the Spanish invasion not as a war, but instead as an entrada, a pacification, or as a conquest to save souls. 

 

Adding to this injustice is that, often, reality is so brutal, barbaric and painful that reading about it in a history book or seeing it on a screen causes many to shy away from even learning about it, or worse yet, attempt to ban books to restrict students of history from learning about the past.  

 

Gout’s choice of horror counters this void by enlightening, even when the reader may not know it, because they are enjoying the story so much. 

 

Who doesn’t love a piñata?  

 

But the hollow birthday decoration of paper and plaster in this book is not the modern day one shaped like a burro that was discovered by Marco Polo in China, brought to Italy, adopted in Spain and then celebrated in Mexico.  No, this piñata already existed among the native Mexica and Mayan populations.  

 

Gout writes:  

He blew the dust off the clay pot, revealing it to be coated in leather and adorned with a terrible grimacing face.  Its teeth were barred and its tongue was out.  It looked like a monster. 

“Interesting pot,” said Carmen. 

“It’s a tlapalxoktli,” replied Quauhtli.

“A piñata.” 

“For children to break?” 

“Not exactly, it’s a sacrifice, an offer, tlamanalistli.”  

 

What these characters will discover is that this offering does not have candy, toys or gum inside, but something much more sinister. 

 

By employing such a powerful historical backdrop and symbol of Mexican identity, Gout can explore powerful questions like how should the past be preserved?  Who has the right and power to preserve the past - the Nahua? the Catholic Church? the Mexican government?  And what should be the appropriate way to avenge the wrongs of the past?  Is violence the right way? Or should another path be taken through religion, either Christian or Nahua? Should we stand in judgment of others or should we learn to forgive? 

 

Piñata may appear on its face as just another horror story, but to anyone who reads this book, including Latinos who are starving to be seen in all types of literature, including the horror genre, Piñata is much more.  

 

Gout uses fiction in much the same way as Jordan Peele did with his directorial debut, “Get Out,” which wove a trenchant social critique with a brilliantly effective horror thrill ride.  Piñata is a fear inducing and well-crafted book that places carefully written Latino characters directly in the canon where too long they have been excluded.  

 

By having Latino characters up front, all readers are richer, although, possibly, sleep deprived because of the scream-inducing nightmares the book may incite in the reader’s imagination. 

 

One character that readers will come to embrace is Yoltzi, a 24 year old woman who at a young age manifested a gift that can “only be described as an ability to see inside people.”  As her name confirms she is Nahua and as a girl she wanted to “become an anthropologist or an interpreter for her mother tongue, or even a lawyer who would defend her people from the oppression” of the rich and the local government.  

 

Yoltzi tries to warn Carmen that Carmen's family is in danger, but the Chicana from New York City misunderstands Yoltzi’s intentions and thinks instead that she is trying to threaten her with physical harm.  

 

Gout’s knowledge of the differences of Mexican Americans living in Mexico, carrying negative biases after growing up in the United States towards Mexicans, shines in this passage.  

 

Another writer might not know the nuances of the experience of being Chicana in the United States and that of being Nahua raised in Mexico.  Gout grew up in Mexico City and then won a scholarship to study sculpture at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London.  He now resides with his family in New York City, so he knows the subtleties and complexity of the Mexican experience across many borders. 

 

Gout does not shy away from the problems that Mexico faces such as drug trafficking, gangs, femicide, government corruption and the dangers that migrants face crossing the border between countries.  He names them and highlights them as problems in his book.  

The author puts these issues in the proper context and explains, through vivid storytelling, that much of these societal problems stem from a systemic trauma tied inextricably to how indigenous people were and are treated since the Spanish arrived to Mexico’s shores. Moreover, his book serves as an allegory as to what may happen if we do not address the past.  

 

Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, a noted Mexican philosopher, asks in his seminal book, Mexico Profundo, “Did Mesoamerican civilization really die, and are the remaining Indian populations simply fossils, condemned five hundred years ago to disappear because they have no place in the present or in the future?” 

 

I think we know that the answer to the question is a resounding, “No,” and Gout’s Piñata is a welcome piece of fiction that reminds us, in an unexpected way, to always remember our past because the consequences for not doing so can be devastating.   

 

 

Meet La Bloga's Guest Reviewer

Rey is a writer, advocate and attorney, who lives in Pasadena, CA.  He is currently working on a novel set in Mexico City and the Mayan Underworld and a nonfiction book on Proyecto Pastoral at Dolores Mission, a nonprofit serving the immigrant community of Boyle Heights for over 30 years.