MARY PAINS HC

Mary Pain has hit rock bottom - but it is there that she discovers unexpected freedom. Out of work and out of prospects, she buys a one-way ticket back to the bleak small town of her childhood, where time seems to have stopped and the old rumors never die. Back at her parents’ house, she has to save the home from foreclosure, look after her ailing grandfather, and make peace with the ghost of her mother, whose calls still come through the old kitchen phone.

Despite everything, Mary will not be ground down: she meets men for midnight rendezvous in the park and remains open to deeper connections - with childhood friends, new lovers, and cheeky altar boys.

• Second chances and fresh starts
• Family, loss, and the work of grieving
• Small-town atmosphere between gossip and memory
• Quiet, surreal notes: a calling mother’s ghost

Lola Lorente’s elegant black-and-white inking captures the quirks of people and place with sensuality and precision. Translated from the Spanish by Andrea Rosenberg. Published by Drawn & Quarterly.