fun home

fun home: a family tragicomic - alison bechdel (houghton mifflin)

an intelligent and witty memoir attempting to decipher a girl's relationship to her father.

i can't recommend this highly enough. it was recommended to me by a knowing employee of ok comics in leeds based on loving maus by art spiegelman. i'm lucky enough not to make a habit of reading poorly-drawn graphic novels, so stating that the images suit the tale well is hardly saying much. fun home is simply drawn, but it fulfils the requirements of the text. bechdel's 'memoir' is as much a biography of her father (who dies suspiciously weeks after alison announces her homosexuality to her parents) whose homosexual infidelities are revealed and bechdel attempts to draw parallels and contrasts between their lives. bechdel painfully retells her father's obsession for restoration - particularly their victorian home. what makes this novel special is that bechdel's story itself is interesting, but the little details and references to literature (such as james joyce's ulyssees, currently unread on my bookshelf) highlight her proficiency in writing; it is hard to criticise her writing style. fun home is immensely likable, a real gem.

alison bechdel's website