I have to be honest: I really don't know what to make of this series! I've read a handful of the collections, and they're weirdly compelling. I don't think I've ever read anything like them before, but half the time I don't know what the hell is going on. Mostly I'm just glad that there's a cast of characters and their relationships to each other at the back, because the cast list here is enormous and they're shown over generations, and not always in order.

It's mostly a collection of comic strips about the everyday lives of ordinary people living in the small town of Palomar. It's poor and rural and there are occasional elements of magical realism, but mostly it's general fiction. (As one of the characters says, a little magical realism goes a long way.) There's a serial killer and a pestilential invasion of monkeys and a decrepit old man who seems to be some sort of undying protector of generations of women in a family. There's also arguments between mothers and daughters, emigration to the USA, earthquakes, adultery... so much is thrown at the wall that I'm almost overwhelmed with it all, and want a timeline and a cheat sheet. And yet, and yet... I want to read more about little one-armed Casimira, and Doralis with her tv series, the artist who throws his sculptures in the river, the sheriff carrying around a mummified foetus, and all the rest. It's completely bizarre, but it's interesting. 

Fucked if I know what's happening here, but it's got style.