Review: 'Velvet Was the Night,' by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Look closely at the cover of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's novel "Velvet Was the Night." A seductive woman holds a cigarette poised between perfectly manicured nails. Her lush lips, slightly parted, suggest possibilities. Dangerous ones. Even the title swirls around her like wisps of light against the darkness. Her gaze is alluring and confident despite the shadowy silhouettes reflected in her bold '70s sunglasses.

This is a classic pulp fiction cover, but "Velvet Was the Night" is not your grandparents' pulp fiction or Quentin Tarantino's, either. "Velvet Was the Night" is a wonderfully entertaining, slyly feminist pulp novel set during the terrible violence of the Dirty War that ravaged Mexico's shaky democracy in the 1970s.

In the first half of the 20th century, pulp novels (named from the cheap paper on which they were printed) crashed the literary market, making books more affordable and adding sensationalized plots packed with action (and violence) to the popular genres we love today (westerns, horror, romance, sci-fi, mysteries).

Pulp fiction also has a characteristically unique attitude woven through its narrative, a wry and judgy sensibility. Moreno-Garcia's novel has all these pulp elements, especially the narrative swagger.

Maite, the main female character "lives for love" (even her name means love). She's an unassuming secretary who needs her routines. She's taken for granted and taken advantage of. She survives with a rich fantasy life drawn from romance novels, comics and her eclectic record collection.

But Maite can't "drown out reality" completely. After all, she's living in a real horror story that is Mexico City during government roundups, tortures and assassinations. When Maite's neighbor, Leonora, asks Maite to feed her cat while she's gone for a few days, Maite reluctantly agrees and stumbles into a conspiracy that changes her life.

Leonora is everything Maite is not. She's confident, outspoken, beautiful and never taken for granted. Leonora is part of the student movement fighting the Mexican government's totalitarian policies. After a few days, Maite realizes that Leonora is missing. Maite starts looking for her, not because she cares what happened to her, but because why should she continue to take care of the cat?

Elvis, the main male character, is an assassin who hates violence, loves rock 'n' roll and whose motto is "life's a mess." He learns a "word of the day" to keep his brain on its toes, and he'd rather be reading. He's looking for Leonora, too, but for reasons that have nothing to do with her cat and everything to do with a roll of film with some serious stuff on it.

When their lives and their stories converge, the novel builds to an ending for Maite (and for readers) that's "unusual and unforeseen."

Carole E. Barrowman teaches at Alverno College in Milwaukee.

Velvet Was the Night
By: Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
Publisher: Del Rey, 304 pages, $28.