Luba: The Book of Ofelia (A Love & Rockets Book) [Paperback]

Gilbert Hernandez (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2006 | Series: The Luba Trilogy

Luba, Ofelia and company try to acclimate to life in America. Beto explores the complex, sometimes violent, sexual dramas that are his trademark, as Luba's daughters and sisters juggle men, ultimately with deadly results.

Luba: The Book of Ofelia begins with Luba, Ofelia and company trying to acclimate to life in America, where Luba still has yet to learn English. When Ofelia decides to chronicle her life with Luba in a tell-all book, she discovers inspiration in Luba's young children—the one-armed Casimira, Socorro with the photographic memory, the loner Joselito and the silent Conchita. The children lead Ofelia to a seemingly haunted field where the disembodied voice of a baby crying opens the floodgates of memory, even memories Ofelia has spent a lifetime trying to forget. Meanwhile, Hernandez continues to explore the complex, sometimes violent, sexual dramas that are his trademark: Luba's daughter Guadalupe is now married to Gato, who is the ex-husband of Pipo, who happens to be the producer of the TV show starring Luba's other daughter Doralis. Pipo is dating a man named Igor, who once dated Guadalupe. As if that isn't enough, Luba's beautiful, lisping therapist sister Fritz, preoccupied with two different boyfriends—famous soccer champion Sergio and gorgeous model Enrique—somehow finds time for a third man, Hector, only to change her mind and hook him up with her sister, the bodybuilder Petra. As these characters lives intersect and even more characters come in to the sexually charged fray, things get even more complicated, ultimately with deadly results. 260 pages of black-and-white comics

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Despite the Brothers Hernandezes' massive collections of the first two decades of, respectively, Gilbert's tales of a mythical Latin American village, Palomar (2003), and Jaime's stories about two young Chicanas in the L.A. barrio, Locas (2004), Gilbert's new collection shows that he has not given up on his creation.Gilbert tracks Palomar matriarch Luba to America, where she joins a cast of characters nearly as vast as that of Palomar: her sisters Fritz, a lisping psychotherapist, and bodybuilding medical technician Petra; their various lovers, in particular Fritz's girlfriend Pipo, who produces a kiddie TV show hosted by Luba's daughter, Doralis; Luba's cousin, Ofelia, who has decided to write a tell-all about her outrageous family; and the mysterious Fortunato, who seduces virtually every woman at hand. The sprawling plot doesn't fully cohere, the stateside locale lacks the elemental power of mythic Palomar, the narrative's inspiration derives from Mexican telenovelas rather than magic realism, and the characters, mostly selfish and sex-obsessed, aren't as complex or sympathetic as the Palomarans. But Gilbert's strengths--his ability to juggle complex, multiple story lines and his distinctive, expressive blending of realistic illustration and caricature--remain undiminished. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

“The rough-edged Latin American minimalist, stylized black and white comic strips of Gilbert Hernandez have been widely described as the graphic equivalent to the fabulism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Nobel laureate.” (The Times [London] )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books (January 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560976993
• ISBN-13: 978-1560976998
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 7.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,013,230 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)