Sole Otero’s new graphic novel, Mothballs, is a multigenerational saga of female disenfranchisement and despair. The story opens as Ro, an Argentinean college student, attends the funeral of her grandmother Vilma with plans to move into in her now-vacant house. Ro’s return to the house spurs memories of a complicated relationship with Vilma, a troubled figure alienated from most of the family who becomes, in death, a ghost-like presence in Ro’s life. The book offers a stylishly illustrated exploration of the roots of Vilma’s isolating bitterness, which begins in the 1920s as her Communist grandparents flee Mussolini’s fascist Italy for a new life in Argentina. Otero tracks the lives of Vilma and her queer brother Antonio across decades as her family—and, most painfully, Antonio—repeatedly betray her deepest hopes and ambitions, forcing her into the era’s rigidly defined roles for wife and mother. In this 11-page excerpt, Vilma’s family has arrived in Argentina in 1923, and her parents and grandparents begin to build the family compound, including the house that Ro will eventually occupy after Vilma’s death. Mothballs by Sole Otero is out now from Fantagraphics.