Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A charming slice-of-life magical realist book set in Mexico City in the late 80s and in 2009.
Late 80s Mercedes Vega (Meche) is a prickly, sarcastic 15-year old who has developed twin interests in pop music nerdery and spellcasting. She manages to combine the two, and becomes a sorceress who uses vinyl records as a focusing agent for her spells. She press gangs her two friends–bookish Sebastian and girly-girl Daniela–to form a makeshift coven. Mayhem, of the normal teenaged variety, ensues. Flash foward 20-odd years finds Meche, who’s moved to Oslo, is still prickly and sarcastic, still smarting from the fallout of her experiments in sorcery.
Signal to Noise is a gentle, character-driven novel, less about magic and more about the carefully crafted people Moreno-Garcia makes.
Fans of Jonathan Carroll and Mary Rickert would enjoy this book.
Craig Laurance Gidney 