Does Suspense in Magical Realism Work?
Suspense is a novelist’s bread and butter. Readers want, more than anything, to know what happens next in a book, and so, that’s what a novel ought to deliver—a feeling of anticipation that keeps you turning the pages.
Blending suspense with magical realism creates a unique reading experience that keeps readers hooked. Both styles play off each other and can create something not just page-turning but also unexpected and thought-provoking at the same time.
Magical realism is a genre that blends reality with the fantastical to create a literary atmosphere where magical elements are integrated into real life. It takes a certain suspension of belief from the reader—as all fiction does, really—but this particular type of book stretches your imagination just slightly. It takes the mundane world we live in and sprinkles in a little magic.
With its origins in Latin American literature—think Gabriel García Márquez—magical realism has become a beloved genre the world over. Names as popular as Isabel Allende, Haruki Murakami, Salman Rushdie, and Neil Gaiman have written magical realism, a type of novel that sets fantastical happenings in an otherwise real-world place. Magical realism infused with mystery-style suspense is a fun twist on the genre, and from this twist, some exciting, page-turning novels have been born, and they’re packed with suspense—much to readers’ delight.
In my book The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt, a young Victorian woman has a magical relationship with the flowers and plants in her garden. The magic of Harriet’s garden—how it responds to her, how she has difficulty controlling it—is one of the first things readers learn about her. Something else readers learn right away: Harriet’s father has gone missing. A local inspector is suspicious of Harriet, who is quite peculiar for 19th century London: she’s a young woman living alone. It’s the inspector’s growing wariness and the questions surrounding her father that keep readers hanging on in suspense. They want to know what happened to Harriet’s father. But there’s also a magical, unpredictable garden to think about. Readers want to know, too, what is going to happen with the garden.
Suspense in novels is created using many different techniques, many of which, when done well, are invisible to readers. Unanswered questions keep us flipping to the next page because we want to know what happened in the past. An unsolved mystery is one way to hold suspense. But there is also another way: the feeling that something bad is going to happen in the future. We just don’t know when or how or by whom. This form of suspense is the equivalent of walking through a haunted house at Halloween. You know someone is going to jump out and scare you, but you don’t know where they are or when that scare is going to happen. That’s what makes it exciting (or terrifying, if you’re a chicken like me).
When suspense is combined with magical realism in fiction, this adds an extra layer of anticipation for readers. Using magic in a real-world context pushes readers to wonder, what is going to happen, and how does the magic play a role?
In The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt, you, the reader can base your expectations only on what the magical garden does on the page and Harriet’s explanations of it. Since most readers don’t have prior knowledge of actual magical gardens, the magic is an unknown entity. It requires the reader to wonder about it, which adds to the story’s suspense. Our instinct is to question what this strange magic is all about and what on earth it’s going to do next.
In Zoraida Córdova’s The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina, the story opens in an enchanted house in Four Rivers, a town that’s “magic-adjacent.” The magic in this story is woven seamlessly into the real world as if it’s no amazing feat that it exists. This is not only what makes the book magical realism by genre, but it also kicks the suspense up a notch. The family in this book seeks to uncover the truth about the magic itself while being simultaneously haunted by it. Questions about the magic and how it plays a role in the otherwise ordinary lives of the characters are what propel readers forward.
Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic is another example of suspenseful magical realism. We wonder what’s going to happen to the Owens sisters. We can’t wait to find out. From the time they’re little girls, we know magic and odd goings-on will impact them as adults. We just don’t know how, exactly. There’s also a general sense of foreboding that comes with the magic, since, early on, the sisters witness the unexpected results of their aunts’ magic, and it’s not good. It’s this knowledge—that the magic might unintentionally result in something bad—that keeps us wondering what is going to happen in the future. The magic creates suspense.
In Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young, an island brims with magic, witnessed by all but accessible only to the few who know the spells. On Saoirse Island, the magic, if misused, can be deadly. A suspicious death of the past haunts the characters once they’re reunited, and they have to work together to find out what happened before the townspeople take justice into their own hands. Here, magic is part of the setting but also launches the plot and begs the question: what does magic have to do with it?
Some comments I’ve seen in discussions about suspenseful magical realism books are similar: I was pleasantly surprised, or I don’t usually read this kind of book but I’m glad I did. Suspenseful magical realism is an in-between sub-genre that is inherently hard to classify. You can’t strictly call it a thriller because readers will be confused when they start to read about magic. You can’t strictly call it fantasy because readers will expect dragons and intricate world-building. But maybe these suspenseful books with a sprinkling of magic are a little bit of both. They’re not necessarily one thing and not necessarily the other, and that’s their beauty. They keep readers suspended in an innately liminal space.
Discover the Book
Harriet Hunt is completely alone. Her father disappeared months ago, leaving her to wander the halls of Sunnyside house, dwelling on a past she’d rather keep buried. She doesn’t often venture beyond her front gate, instead relishing the feel of dirt under her fingernails and of soft moss beneath her feet. Consequently, she’s been deemed a little too peculiar for popular Victorian society. This solitary life suits her fine, though – because, in her garden, magic awaits.
Harriet’s garden is special. It’s a wild place full of twisting ivy, vibrant plums, and a quiet power that buzzes like bees. Caring for this place, and keeping it from running rampant through the streets of her London suburb, is Harriet’s purpose.
When suspicion for her father’s disappearance falls on her, she marries a seemingly charming man, the first to see past her peculiarities, in order to protect herself. It’s soon clear, however, that her new husband might be worse than her father and that she’s integral to a dark plot created by the men around her. To free herself and discover the truth, she must learn to channel the power of her strange, magical garden.
At once enchantingly mesmerizing and fiercely feminist, perfect for fans of The Magician’s Daughter and The Once and Future Witches, the vibrant world-building and sinister undertones of The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt make for the perfect modern fairytale about women taking control of their lives–with a little help from the magic within them.
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