Are we monsters? Or are we miracles? That’s what Silvia Moreno-Garcia forces us to ask ourselves in “The Daughter of Doctor Moreau” (Del Rey, 320 pp., ★★★ out of four, out now).
In the follow-up to the noir mystery “Velvet Was the Night,” the genre-hopping author reimagines the classic 1896 sci-fi novel “The Island of Doctor Moreau” by H.G. Wells and gives us a rousing and romantic anti-colonial novel set in the Yucatán Peninsula in 19th-century Mexico.
In Yaxaktun ranch lives Carlota Moreau, the docile daughter of an infamous researcher with a secret even she’s unaware of; majordomo Montgomery Laughton, a high-functioning depressed alcoholic who grows fond of the remote island and its inhabitants; and the hybrids Lupe and Cachito, the fruits of the doctor’s labor and Carlota’s only family.
They live a (mostly) blissful and unbothered life in the “beautiful dream” that is Yaxaktun until their world is upended by the abrupt arrival of Eduardo Lizalde, the son of Dr. Moreau’s patron, Fernando Lizalde.
The novel bounces back and forth between the third-person points of view of Carlota and Montgomery. The unlikely duo – a young naive woman and a jaded man – question and push back on the doctor’s experimentations, uncover dark secrets and ultimately imagine a Yaxaktun that’s a haven for the hybrids, and themselves, rather than a death sentence.
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The “Mexican Gothic” author’s retelling is set against the backdrop of a real conflict, too: the decades-long Caste War of Yucatán between the Maya people and the Mexican government. This history adds nuance to the way the doctor’s hybrids are treated by outsiders who are too ignorant, or rather afraid, to look beyond the “curse made flesh” with “razor-thin teeth” and cat-like features.
Carlota’s love and empathy for the hybrids is the heart that keeps the story of “The Daughter of Doctor Moreau” beating. Her father and the Lizaldes, including her love interest Eduardo, treat Carlota like a damsel in distress. But rather than succumbing to their views of her and her sheltered life, Carlota wants more for herself. She pushes back against how the men around her expect a woman to act, think and feel.
Moreno-Garcia breathes new life into the classic story by mixing horror with historical fiction and feminist themes. The Mexican Canadian novelist keeps a steady pace, and her prose instantly draws you in and has you cheering on all of her flawed characters. It’s the end when we reach the uprising between the Lizades and the hybrids that feels a bit rushed.
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“Doctor Moreau” is another page-turner from Moreno-Garcia, but having Carlota and Montgomery tell the story leaves the reader craving for more on the hybrid creatures.
It also leaves us pining for the answer to the question Carlota can’t seem to figure out herself, and that her father vaguely sheds light on: What was Dr. Moreau’s grand plan for creating the hybrids, including his daughter, if he didn’t plan to exploit them?
Perhaps it was intentional.
Like Carlota, we’re constantly faced with existential and moral questions about who we are, why we’re here and what it all means – and rarely come up with fulfilling answers. And like Dr. Moreau, who really knows why we do the things we do sometimes?
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