Pretty wild collection of vignettes in the life of a woman searching for her family. Cults, the 60s, transistor radios in cabins communicating with the dead(?), all kindsa weird stuff. Clowes usually gives me a stomachache and this is no exception, but there's also no denying that this is a solid achievement. ( )

Eerie and devastating, the most lovely book production of any graphic novel I have encountered ( )

Raro y entretenido. Los caminos de la vida… ( )

I like that the Clampetts from The Beverly Hillbillies made it into the summary of the history of the Earth included on the title page. That was the first and last thing I enjoyed in this book. The rest of it is just a bunch of absurd nonsense of the sort that critics seem to love (see below) but that just leaves me cold.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents: Foxhole -- Pretty Penny -- The Glow Infernal -- Demonica -- The Incident -- Success -- The Opening the Way -- Krugg -- Doomsday

(Best of 2023 Project: I'm reading all the graphic novels that made it onto one or more of these lists:
• Washington Post 10 Best Graphic Novels of 2023
• Publishers Weekly 2023 Graphic Novel Critics Poll

This book made both lists.) ( )

A woman named, yes, Monica, is the central character in this story, which follows her from birth to old age. Monica’s mother decides to stop waiting for her boyfriend to return from Vietnam and jumps deep into the counterculture of that time. Monica is soon born and spends a tumultuous few years before she is dumped with her grandparents while her mother disappears for decades.

Her life is told through a series of interconnected stories involving a cult, a coma, a successful interlude as a businesswoman; but mainly a life a seeking, trying to nail down her origins. She finally tracks down most of the people she’s looking for, with varying degrees of satisfaction, and seemingly settles down into something approaching almost contentment, waiting for social security. But one last quest leads to an ambiguous Pandora’s Box of an ending that leaves you, me at least, confused and wondering what it all means. ( )