Graphic Medicine Review: Mothballs
Author: Sole Otero, Andrea Rosenberg (Translator)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 336
Publish Date: August 13, 2024
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books Inc
Catalog ID: ISBN: 978-1683969617
Where to buy: https://bookshop.org/lists/recently-reviewed-on-graphicmedicine-org
Author website: http://soleotero.com/
Review
by Soph Myers-Kelley
Mothballs may be one of the best graphic medicine novels I’ve ever read. Mothballs’ visual storytelling, bold and varied color usage, unique drawing style, portrayal of relatable characters, and full-bodied representation of the beauty and ugliness of the world feeds the raw hunger that I have for stories written with substance.
Mothballs, by Sole Otero, was originally published in Spain in 2020 and entitled Naftalina. It was translated three years later in 2023 by Andrea Rosenberg. This book won the FNAC-Salamandra Graphic Novel Award in 2019, the Audience Award from the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2023, the New York Public Library Best Comics for Adults 2024 and the Publishers Weekly Best Comics of 2024. I can understand why.
This book is written so well, and the characters are so vibrant, I would have believed it if it were a memoir. It is, as far as I can tell, fiction. However, some of the truest stories are told via the constructs of fiction writing.
Mothballs focuses on Rocío, a young adult moving into her recently deceased grandmother’s house in Argentina. Through connecting with her grandmother’s cat, dealing with a flea infestation, and connecting to the spirits and memories of the house, Rocío experiences her grandmother’s life from pre-birth (great-grandparents in Italy) to death. From a queer, closeted, cross-dressing brother unable to live his life freely, to religion, rape, and the restrictive expectations of womanhood and family keeping her from pursuing a teaching career, Rocío’s grandmother Vilma’s bitter heart is explained. One may even find themselves garnering empathy for her, despite her rudeness to her granddaughter, Rocío. We see how Vilma became a hardened woman, and how her well-intentioned comments to others read justifiably as inappropriate or ill-spirited. We see that, unfortunately, or fortunately, almost nobody can be easily painted as the flat, personality-free “villain” or the vain, superficial “hero”. We’ve all hurt, and we’ve all been hurt, and Vilma is no different.
In terms of illustration, Mothballs uses some of the most joyful and creative means to tell the story. One page in particular brought me joy; when Rocío is in her enclosed bedroom with her best friend, the black cat on the other side of the door begins meowing and pawing impatiently to reunite with the two people. On the comic page, the cat’s meows and yowls become so loud, so impossible to ignore, that they cover over most of the panel’s drawings of the bedroom. Even the character’s dialogue is partially covered by the meowing, making for an incredible storytelling mechanism.
Another illustrative element I enjoyed was the use of color and image distortion to express the spirit world, or the world of memory and family history. Otero uses mothballs and happy squiggly faces to lead our protagonist into the world of her grandmother and other family members. A black backdrop and rainbow elements highlight the protagonist and her grandmother, creating a symbolic space that feels beyond time and reasoning. As though the characters have literally been stripped of facade and social nicety, the characters are sometimes naked in these scenes. In a similar vein, when Rocío begins developing photos in a makeshift dark room in her grandmother’s house, the “lighting” becomes a deep dark red. Anyone who’s worked in a dark room will recognize the lighting instantaneously (look up images for dark room photography if you’re not familiar). Finally, after characters die, we see them “leave” the house for a final time, into that black unknown. Sometimes, as more characters have died, we see them reconnecting with more and more deceased family members. What a bitter joy!
One frustrating element of the storytelling was the use of cursive in some sections of the story. I find cursive difficult to read and I’m sure other readers with more severe visual difficulties will find it impossible.
This book highlighted a thought stream I’ve been having lately; namely, most everyone who’s done something we now consider terrible, violent, inappropriate, or just plain wrong had their reasons for doing so. It doesn’t excuse the way they behaved, but we may have a little empathy for what in their lives led them to such actions. In that way, the grandmother in this book is bitter, broken-hearted, cruel, and mean to the ones she loves, leaving her an isolated, old, and ultimately unloved woman. And yet, following her storyline from birth to death, I cannot help but feel for her, and for her granddaughter, who is picking up the pieces and deciding if, or how, they will impact and guide her own life.
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Soph Myers-Kelley is a medical librarian, herbalist, and activist living in North Carolina. They can be contacted at https://www.smyerskelley.com/ and followed at https://www.instagram.com/thesofakingofficial/
Originally posted on graphicmedicine.org here: https://www.graphicmedicine.org/comic-reviews/mothballs-2/