Book Title: Souls in the Mist: A Tale I Lived
Publisher: Balboa Press
Year Published: 2018
Pacifica Program: MA Counseling Psychology
Graduation Year: 2004

Souls in the Mist: A Tale I Lived

The story introduces us to the life and customs of San Miguel, a small rural town of a Southern State in Mexico, in the years 80’s

In it we see what is happening throughout the four days of festivities for the so-called Days of Deads’ in Mexico, which is a major reverential festivity, a syncretic tradition of pre-Columbian and Christian believes.

The common thread of the story is an old woman who, as she goes from her house to the market, the Church or cemetery during these festivity days, is encountering various inhabitants of the village.

As she and the rest of her neighbors are doing various tasks specific to those days, she is narrating her life and sharing her thoughts and memories from the town’s old days, but whenever she encounters someone in the village, she “takes us by the hand” to the inside of that person’s story.

While we know about the traditions and customs around of Days of the Deads festivities, we listen to the stories of different villagers as well as their thoughts, experiences and memories of youth… of times prior to the arrival of the television and even the arrival of electricity to the town.  The tone of the encounters between her and the villagers is personal, as if we were part of the town’s gossiping. 

The traditions associated with these festivities lend a magical aura to the plot of the novel, as the living characters seem not only to reminiscence but also to interact with the souls of the deceased. The reader becomes first-hand witness to the town’s deepest soul.

Its tone takes a page from the style of Magic Realism made famous by Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude or Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits.

About Monica de la Valle

Mónica studied Communication at Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, and later life’s paths led her to a Counseling Psychology masters at Pacifica Graduate Institute, in California, which allowed her to fulfill a vocation: ministering deeply to the soul.

For her, writing has been a temptation and a pleasure; listening, a calling; sharing what touches her, an obsession.

She currently lives in Mexico City where she has a private practice in Nourishing Psychology and develops online courses.