I haven’t read a graphic text in quite a while, and I didn’t realize that Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic was a graphic text when I ordered it. Given the subject matter—growing up in a funeral home with a closeted father who eventually commits suicide—I was surprised to discover the panels of drawings when I opened the book.
But it works. It really works.
Alison Bechdel’s memoir is one of the most literate and literary memoirs that I have ever read. Bechdel is the daughter of two English teachers, and she is a student of literature herself, and these things are evident in her text. The Great Gatsby, The Importance of Being Earnest, and James Joyce’s Ulysses all figure prominently is Bechdel’s analysis of her childhood.
Though the tragic weighs heavily in Fun Home (the loveless marriage of Bechdel’s parents, the suicide of her father, the guilt that she feels for his death, the secrets that she discovers about his life), there are still many smile-worthy moments in the text. It’s a thoughtful and thought-provoking memoir in an unexpected form.
