The Love Bunglers

Featuring Jaime Hernandez’s longtime Love and Rockets heroine Maggie, The Love Bunglers explores the suppression of her family history. Because these secrets can’t be dealt with openly, they weigh heavily on her mind. But Maggie’s ability to navigate and find meaning in her life — despite losing her culture, her brother, her profession, and her friends — is what’s made her a compelling character. After a lifetime of losses, Maggie finds, in the second half, her longtime off-and-on lover, Ray Dominguez. In taking us through lives, deaths, and near-fatalities, The Love Bunglers encapsulates Maggie’s emotional history as it moves from resignation to memories of loss, to sudden violence (a theme in this story) and eventually to love and contentment. Hernandez has been following his longtime character, Maggie, around for several decades, which lends this book a powerful emotional resonance.