In 'The Hacienda,' the protagonist is trapped in a haunted house – and her marriage

Summary

NPR's Book of the Day

Episode: In 'The Hacienda,' the protagonist is trapped in a haunted house – and her marriage
Date: October 30, 2025
Host: Aisha Rascoe
Guest: Isabel Cañe (author of The Hacienda)

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Episode Overview

This episode spotlights Isabel Cañe and her debut novel, The Hacienda, a gripping Gothic horror set in post-independence Mexico. The book explores not just chilling supernatural hauntings but also the realities of social confinement, particularly for women of the era. Cañe discusses the inspirations behind her novel, the role of cultural and historical context, and how she crafted a protagonist who refuses to be a mere victim. The conversation covers haunted house tropes, Mexican history, syncretism in spiritual practices, and the ongoing resonance of these themes today.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Haunted House as a Metaphor for Entrapment

• Opening Context ([00:02]):
  Andrew Limbong expresses skepticism about haunted house stories, questioning why characters don’t simply leave.
  • “If you're a character in a haunted house story, just don't go inside. Or if you own the place, just get a realtor and move. ... But in the 2022 book The Hacienda, our hero is trapped in a haunted house because she's stuck in a marriage and she's got nowhere else to go, which is something that's extremely relatable.”
• Beatriz’s Situation ([01:21]):
  Aisha Rascoe lays out the protagonist’s limited choices—her family is disgraced and homeless, leading her to a hastily accepted marriage with a wealthy man of secrets.
  • “She never asked what really happened to his first wife. Rookie mistake. That’s how the action starts in The Hacienda.”

2. Atmosphere and Haunted House Tropes

• Gaslighting and Isolation ([02:25]):
  Isabel Cañe describes how Beatriz is left alone in her new home while her husband works in Mexico City. The other inhabitants avoid certain parts of the house and deny any supernatural occurrences, amplifying Beatriz’s isolation and doubt.
  • “She quickly discovers that this place is profoundly haunted. But nobody seems to believe her...she’s kind of gaslit by the other people who live on the hacienda.”
• Seeking Help:
  Beatriz seeks out Padre Andrés, a young priest with secrets of his own, breaking the mold of traditional Gothic support characters.

3. Personal Inspiration & Childhood Fears

• Origin of the Haunted House Fascination ([03:24]):
  Cañe’s fear of the dark and childhood in a creepy 1920s house influenced her. Being sent to the basement for misbehavior heightened her imagination and sense of lurking danger.
  • “I knew there was something in this house, particularly in the basement, that just felt watchful and felt uncomfortable… if I was very bad, [time out] was at the bottom of the basement stairs.” ([03:24])
• Birth of the Novel ([04:22]):
  The spark for The Hacienda came during a thunderstorm on her honeymoon in Mexico City, following a string of professional rejections.
  • “I heard this voice, like, as clear as the toll of a church bell...and those words became the first chapter, the first pages of The Hacienda.” ([04:22])

4. Historical Context: Post-Mexican War of Independence

• Why this Era? ([05:20]):
  Cañe is fascinated by the period’s turmoil, social upheaval, and the enduring effects of colonial systems like the casta system (race-based social hierarchy).
  • “It's a period in which we see the seeds and saplings...of many conflicts that persist...colonialism, colorism, the casta system.” ([05:32])

5. Cultural Syncretism and Spirituality

• Religious Influences ([05:32]):
  Raised Catholic, Cañe wanted to explore syncretism between Catholicism and indigenous traditions—still visible in modern observances like Dia de Muertos.
  • “I really wanted to see that reflected in characters...Padre Andrés...and in the witchcraft that he practices...from both sides of his family, from the indigenous part...and the European side.”
• Padre Andrés as a Witch ([07:01]):
  The “priest” character subverts expectations, merging European and indigenous magical traditions.
  • “It's on the back cover copy.” ([07:08]) — Isabel Cañe, confirming that Padre Andrés is a witch.

6. Reimagining the Gothic Heroine

• Beatriz’s Evolution ([07:30]):
  Rascoe notes that Beatriz is more assertive than traditional Gothic heroines. Cañe agrees, crediting the haunting with stripping away social differences and forcing Beatriz into survival mode.
  • “The haunting has a way of stripping away the social differences...because they’re all at the mercy of this powerful, uncontrollable, malicious presence.” ([08:07])
  • “She’s a fighter. She often says she’s the daughter of a general. She’s not going to go down without a fight.”

7. Personal Triumphs and What’s Next

• Balancing Academia and Writing ([08:48]):
  Cañe reveals she is defending her PhD dissertation in Near Eastern languages and civilizations the day before her debut novel releases.
  • “Everyone thinks I’m a bit crazy, but it’s the way that I’ve managed to keep myself from going crazy.” ([09:03])
• Future Projects ([09:10]):
  Her next book will also mix 19th-century Mexican history, supernatural elements, and romance.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On why people stay in haunted houses:
  “Our hero is trapped in a haunted house because she's stuck in a marriage and she's got nowhere else to go, which is something that's extremely relatable.” — Andrew Limbong, [00:15]

• Childhood inspiration for horror:
  “When I misbehaved, which I often did as a mouthy five year old, I got sent to the timeout corner, which, if I was very bad, was at the bottom of the basement stairs.” — Isabel Cañe, [03:38]

• On the haunting stripping away class divisions:
  “The haunting has a way of stripping away the social differences...because they're all at the mercy of this powerful, uncontrollable, malicious presence.” — Isabel Cañe, [08:07]

• Joking about Padre Andrés’ supernatural identity:
  “It’s on the back cover copy.” — Isabel Cañe, [07:08]
  “I didn't want to do no spoilers, but he is. But he is a witch.” — Aisha Rascoe, [07:09]

• On persevering through rejection:
  “I can't say much about [my next book] yet, except that it also includes the three themes that I think make The Hacienda: 19th century Mexican history, a real strong helping of the supernatural and of romance.” — Isabel Cañe, [09:18]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Protagonist’s plight & premise: [01:21] – [02:02]
• The haunted house reveals: [02:25] – [03:03]
• Author’s childhood fears: [03:24] – [04:22]
• Novel inspiration and writing process: [04:22] – [05:20]
• Historical & cultural context: [05:20] – [07:01]
• Padre Andrés’ secrets: [07:01] – [07:14]
• Reimagining the Gothic heroine: [07:30] – [08:39]
• Personal triumph and next steps: [08:48] – [09:26]

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Tone and Style

The conversation is warm, candid, and insightful, blending personal anecdotes with intellectual exploration. Both Rascoe and Cañe display humor and depth, making the episode accessible and compelling for listeners interested in gothic fiction, Mexican history, or the writing life.

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For readers and listeners seeking an atmospheric, layered haunted house tale grounded in history and the psychological realities of confinement, Isabel Cañe’s The Hacienda makes a compelling case—and this episode is an engaging primer on its origins and themes.

Transcript

[Andrew Limbong]

Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. Of the big horror bad guy archetypes, you know, monsters and murderers. The haunted house has always struck me as the one that really strains credulity as a reader. I mean, if you're a character in a haunted house story, just don't go inside. Or if you own the place, just get a realtor and move. I don't know. Something about it seems so not grounded in reality. But in the 2022 book The Hacienda, our hero is trapped in a haunted house because she's stuck in a marriage and she's got nowhere else to go, which is something that's extremely relatable. Author Isabel Kanye spoke with Empire's Aisha Rascoe about why she's wanted to write a haunted house story ever since she was a kid. That's after the break.

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[Aisha Rascoe]

Beatrice has limited options in her young life. Her father, a general, was arrested after the Mexican War for independence and executed. Her house burned to the ground. She and her mother make it out just in time. Unsympathetic relatives take them in. So when the chance comes to marry a handsome, rich man, Beatrice jumps. But she never asked what really happened to his first wife. Rookie mistake. That's how the action starts in the Hacienda. And it just doesn't stop. This is Isabel Kanye's debut novel, and she joins us now to talk about it. Welcome.

[Isabel Kanye]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Aisha Rascoe]

Aisha, let's talk about this. It's not just the fate of the first wife that she should have asked some more questions about. But there are problems, evident from the moment Beatriz arrives at Rudolfo's estate. And Rudolfo is the husband. What does she see when she gets there?

[Isabel Kanye]

So when Beatriz arrives at Hacienda San Isidro, Rodolfo soon goes back to Mexico City to work because he's a politician and she's there alone. And she quickly discovers that this place is profoundly haunted. But nobody seems to believe her. No she's kind of gaslit by the other people who live on the hacienda, who. Who seem very afraid of the house, who avoid certain parts of it, who don't talk about what's happening in the house at night, which is when activity really starts to kick off. And so she goes to town and finds help in the form of a young priest called Padre Andres, who has some dark secrets of his own.

[Aisha Rascoe]

Yeah, see, and the thing is, here's the thing. This is essentially a haunted house story. Here's the thing that I always look out for when it comes to a house maybe haunted. If you have a part of a house that you cannot go into, that house may be haunted. Exactly how did you come up with this idea?

[Isabel Kanye]

So I have always been afraid of the dark. And so I knew at one point I wanted to write a haunted house story when I was about five years old. My family moved around quite a lot when I was young, and we moved into a house in the suburbs north of Chicago that was built in the 1920s. And even though I was like five years old, I knew there was something in this house, particularly in the basement, that just felt watchful and felt uncomfortable. And so when I misbehaved, which I often did as a mouthy five year old, I got sent to the timeout corner, which, if I was very bad, was at the bottom of the basement stairs.

[Aisha Rascoe]

Oh, my goodness.

[Isabel Kanye]

And sitting down there, I had ample time to really meditate on what the hell was going on in there. It was a creepy basement. It was very scary.

[Aisha Rascoe]

Oh, my goodness. Did a skeleton hand come out and, like, grab your. No, it didn't take you. Although my imagination certainly ran wild, it.

[Isabel Kanye]

Really sparked those creative juices flowing. But the story for this novel in particular didn't come to me until 2019. I was on my honeymoon in Mexico City, where I lived for a while as a child. And I had had an idea for a haunted house novel. But I was primarily writing young adult fantasy at the time, and quite unsuccessfully, I'd had a lot of rejections and had just received one that was heartbreaking. And so I was lying awake in bed kind of thinking about, well, where should my career go next? As this thunderstorm tired itself out and rain was lashing the window, and, you know, these delicious forks of lightning were just cutting through the sky overhead. I. I heard this voice, like, as clear as the toll of a church bell, narrating what I knew even then was the beginning of something new. And so I, like, snatched my phone off the nightstand and Started typing as fast as I could to pin that voice to paper before it slipped away. And those words became the first chapter, the first pages of the hacienda.

[Aisha Rascoe]

And so what made you want to set this story right after the Mexican War for independence? Why set this in that time?

[Isabel Kanye]

So this is a historical time period that has fascinated me for many years. It's a period of immense change. And it's a period in which we see the seeds and saplings, honestly, of many conflicts that persist, social conflicts that persist in Mexico and in the Latin American diaspora to the present. So there's colonialism, there's colorism, there's the Costa system, whereby one's social status and sometimes even legal status was determined by their racial makeup to be of any kind of mixed heritage. In this period, it wasn't impossible to advance in society, but it was certainly more difficult. And another thing that drew me to this period, having been raised in a very Catholic household, was the syncretism between Catholicism as it came from the continent and indigenous practices and traditions in Mexico. And we see this continuing to the present. Like, if you think about Dia de Muertos or the Day of the Dead, that is the result of Catholic missionary priests in Mexico deciding to incorporate indigenous days of respect for the dead with the Catholic feast days, Valsaint's Day and All Souls Day. And I really wanted to see that reflected in characters, whether that's the person of Padre Andres, who's mestizo. His father is of European descent and his mother was indigenous. And in the witchcraft that he practices, it's partially. He inherits it from both sides of his family, from the indigenous part of his family and the European side of his family. And so that syncretism, to me, is what I am a product of. And it's something that I've never really seen reflected in genre fiction.

[Aisha Rascoe]

Yeah. And I mean, you just dropped that in there. So basically, we can say that Padre Andreas is a witch.

[Isabel Kanye]

It's on the back cover copy.

[Aisha Rascoe]

I didn't want to do no spoilers, but he is. But he is a witch.

[Isabel Kanye]

So I had an outline. I had, you know, classic Gothic archetypes. The young wife, the mysterious husband, the young, the suspicious family members, you know, the big house. And I thought, well, this is Mexico. Of course, there needs to be a priest. And then that priest took and turned the book on its head.

[Aisha Rascoe]

I do wonder about Beatrice. She is a different type of Gothic heroine. She's less of a victim, more of a fighter. It seemed like in the beginning of the book, she was trying to work within the system, get her a rich husband and live a rich. Do you think that the haunting really made her have a different view of what society could be because she realized almost like I am one of the people, I'm really no different from these villagers who work on this property. Like we are in this together. Right?

[Isabel Kanye]

You're right. The haunting has a way of stripping away the social differences that exist between Beatriz as the woman of the house, Juana, her sister in law, and the people who work on the hacienda because they're all at the mercy of this powerful, uncontrollable, malicious presence. And they all deal with it in certain ways. So I think the haunting really kicks Beatrice's will to survive into high gear. She's a fighter. She often says she's the daughter of a general. She's not going to go down without a fight.

[Aisha Rascoe]

So what is next for you? First of all, I mean, you got your debut novel. You said you had dealt with a lot of rejection.

[Isabel Kanye]

It's a big moment for me. The day before the Hacienda comes out, I will be defending my PhD dissertation.

[Aisha Rascoe]

Okay. And what's your PhD on?

[Isabel Kanye]

Near Eastern languages and civilizations. So completely unrelated topic.

[Aisha Rascoe]

Okay. And then you write novels on the side.

[Isabel Kanye]

Yeah, everyone thinks I'm a bit crazy, but it's the way that I've managed to keep myself from going crazy. I am currently, currently working on my second book. I can't say much about it yet, except that it also includes the three themes that I think make the Hacienda what it 19th century Mexican history, a real strong helping of the supernatural and of romance.

[Aisha Rascoe]

That's Isabel Kanye. Her debut novel is the Hacienda. Thank you so much for joining us to talk about it.

[Isabel Kanye]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Andrew Limbong]

Foreign hey, Andrew here, The host of NPR's Book of the Day podcast. And yeah, I love new books, but there's just something about rereading an old favorite. On our new limited series, Books We've Loved, we're revisiting some classics from Pride and Prejudice to Dune to Everything in between and talking about why they're worth reading today. Listen to NPR's Books We've Loved right on this podcast feed every Saturday on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Hey, I'm Daoud Tyler Amin.

[Aisha Rascoe]

And I'm Ann Powers.

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We are an editor and a critic at NPR Music, and we're also friends who love digging into music histories and thinking about how songs can change over time.

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And we're doing that on a new show. We're totally nerding out about the songs that just stick with us and why.

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Find our first episode in the All Songs considered feed on October 23rd.