Pig Wife by Abbey Luck

w an art assist by Ruka Bravo.

This was my first 5-star read of books published in 2026, and you’d best believe that I didn’t think it would be when I first went into it. Abbey Luck has done something exceptional here, writing of horrors both everyday and extraordinary with humor and hope, and without ever descending into gratuitousness. Her artwork, which is heavily influenced by alternative comix luminaries like R Crumb and Art Spiegelman, perfectly walks that line between the glorious and the grotesque, as a young girl comes of age under the most distressing of circumstances.

Mary Martinez hates that her mother Vee left Mary’s musician father and married wealthy Roger Harlow instead. Now they’re on the way to his recently deceased Aunt Pearl’s house, ostensibly to settle her estate but really to look for her will. Aunt Pearl was not a well woman mentally, and lived alone in a town that hated her. Admittedly, the town of Eden had pretty good reason to: in a fit of pique, she closed down the gold mines that were their livelihood, consigning over half the town to poverty even as she kept to herself in her remote farmhouse.

This house, as Mary’s family discovers, is basically a sty. Mary hates every minute of being there, even before she gets into a series of fights with Vee and Roger. After a particularly vicious argument, she runs out into the storm that’s descended over Eden and soon finds herself trapped in one of the gold mines. Worse: she’s not alone.

I really can’t say much else without giving away the plot twists that Ms Luck does an exceptional job of presenting to us here. Her pacing is exquisite, and her plot choices outstanding. It would be so easy to make Mary a brutalized victim, but Ms Luck errs always on the side of humanity rather than sheer monstrosity. And frankly, what happens to Mary here — in fact, what happens to most of the characters here — is bad enough without going for the cheap shocks.

Ms Luck’s background in both animation and fine art shine through in this astonishing graphic novel. The book is over 500 pages long, but not a single one is wasted in telling this horrifying yet surprisingly life-affirming tale.

Pig Wife by Abbey Luck was published January 13 206 by Top Shelf Productions and is available from all good booksellers, including