Alison Bechdel

In this groundbreaking, bestselling graphic memoir, Alison Bechdel charts her fraught relationship with her late father. In her hands, personal history becomes a work of amazing subtlety and power, written with controlled force and enlivened with humor, rich literary allusion, and heartbreaking detail. Distant and exacting, Bruce Bechdel was an English teacher and director of the town funeral home, which Alison and her family referred to as the "Fun Home." It was not until college that Alison, who had recently come out as a lesbian, discovered that her father was also gay. A few weeks after this revelation, he was dead, leaving a legacy of mystery for his daughter to resolve.

A Family Tragicomic

Fun Home

A memoir done in the form of a graphic novel by a cult favorite comic artist offers a darkly funny family portrait that details her relationship with her father--a funeral home director, high school English teacher, and closeted homosexual.

tanaz

I had failed some unspoken initiation rite, And life's possibilities were no longer infinite

The more gratification we found in our own geniuses, the more isolated we grew

cedar winslow

They say that grief takes many forms, including the absence of grief. 

Colette could write better than anyone about physical things; they include the feel of a peach in one’s hand. A man could only write in this way about a woman’s breast. 

from Chapter 1: Old Father, Old Artificer

🧃

…his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb. He really was there all those years, a flesh-and-blood presence steaming off the wallpaper, digging up the dogwoods, polishing the finials…smelling of sawdust and sweat and designer cologne. But I ached as if he were already gone. 

…but it was impossible to tell if the minotaur lay beyond the next corner. And the constant tension was heightened by the fact that some encounters could be quite pleasant. 

For if my father was Icarus, he was also Daedalus—that skillful artificer, that mad scientist who built the wings for his son and designed the famous labyrinth…and who answered not to the laws of society, but to those of his craft. 

Wes Michaud

love the art. the story is told well. took me longer to read than I expected because of how heavy it is. I really enjoyed this book

Shaq H

read this sometime in august or september? gay dad :((

okay I had to think about this for awhile before writing a review, because I've never read anything like this before. It's very emotional and deeply sentimental in a way that's hard to ignore. I didn't really have any queer friends or do any of the radical lesbian reading or stuff she talked about when I was in college, and I can't help but feel like this would have really changed some things for me if I had read this sooner. I also missed a lot of the literary references she talks about, which is why it's not 5 stars, just because I'm missing part of it, but not a fault of the book, I'll just revisit this later if I ever read Ulysses or something. The rest of it feels too much to even try talking about, and almost too personal for me to be reading some of it in the first place, but I'm glad she did and I'm glad I read it, really meant a lot to me. 

Kaye Barnett

This book had a cool way of tacking really intense subject matter through a readable, enjoyable voice. Interesting layout/style, wasn’t quite as cohesive as other graphic novels due to the heavy narration, but I did love the accompanying images. Definitely the most engaging and creative memoir I have read. 

Bechdel writes so lovingly it hurts. As always, I return to this book and it welcomes me by holding a mirror to myself and to my family. My father gifted me this book when I was in high school. The parallel to Bechdel’s father gifting her Colette’s autobiography stood out to me on my most recent reading. 

Alex 

love alison bechdel and complicated family dynamics

Clara Gauthier

rumbledethumps

This memoir can probably best be described as a spiral, where the story turns in on itself, then jumps back out to a previous point on the spiral, then turns back in towards the center. The narrative structure is so good, giving the reader glimpses of the future, then going back to the past, then winding back to the future with new knowledge about what brought us here, then ultimately tightening everything down to a conclusion.

Really great book. Great illustrations, great understanding of both storytelling and the medium of comics.

Isabella

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

Inkmelt

It's uncomfortably intimate and some thing's plain disturbing but I guess good art truly comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable.

Emmm :p

It was quick to get through but all the Greek mythology bored me

Zoe Stricker

very beautifully done, such a complex story, sometimes i get irked by how pedantic Bechdel can be, but she's great nonetheless

Jeannette Ordas

I've been lax on the graphic novel trip this year, so this is the first one i've read in quite a while. After seeing a few pages of this graphic novel blown up in large format at the local art gallery, I put a library hold on this book immediately. Fun Home is a highly personal memoir not just about her relationship with her father but with sorting out family mysteries and the mysteries in her own life. This novel is filled with honesty, wit, literary allusions and beautifully drawn moments.

Izza

4 stars | "But in a way Gatsby's pristine books and my father's worn ones signify the same thing--the preference of a fiction to reality."

Fun Home - Uma Tragicomedia em Familia

Lara Reis

jamais imaginei ler uma história tão rica e densa em quadrinhos. i’m shook

just as personal and wonderful as the musical. ily alison bechdel

Erin O’Donnell

Nelson Zagalo

Brilliant. A magnificent journey throughout the life of a young girl and her particular family. Being a true story makes it even more engaging, however the reading excitement occurs because of the excellence of the dramatic discourse. The non-linear narrative designed by Alison Bechdel is suspenseful making us constantly wish for more. On the other side the ambiance mildly melodramatic spotted with great dark humour creates a real and personal feeling. "Fun Home" is a tour de force in the comics scene, elevating the art to a kind of grandeur that is normally only recognised to literature.

Nicole Dykeman

A very interesting and complex memoir, but it could get kinda dull sometimes.

Steph L 

A heartfelt Graphic Novel

I loved this book so much. I really enjoyed it because it was a look into the life and the relationship between the family. I loved the way the story was told, and I felt like I was along for the ride. The art in the novel was lovely and it really enhanced the story by helping bring the text to life. I recommend that everyone read this book.

** read for queer lit class

Amazing. Bechdel is a gorgeous storyteller and I want to read all of her works

Maggie Gordon

Originally read... 2011ish?

Reread 2018 - The first time I picked up Fun Home, I don't think I was nearly wise or learned enough to appreciate Bechdel's extremely literary, yet affecting memoir about her father. This is a beautiful book about growing up in a dysfunctional family, discovering one's sexuality, and lots of books. It may feel a bit snobbish to some given how many allusions to classic literature there is, but it is accurately reflective of Bechdel's family, and these references add depth and intrigue to the memoir. It makes it easier to understand the idiosyncrasies of these people. Beautiful, heartbreaking, and so utterly human, Fun Home is a must read.

Queena Li

For a graphic novel that had all the buzz words I usually jump at in one beautifully illustrated package, I guess I was just expecting a lot more. I loved Bechdel's drawing style and how much detail she put into every panel (The Normal Heart poster, anyone?). The way she revealed the character of her father through overlapping story lines was seamless. I have to say that I found the development slow, at times, and not always easy to follow, but the general characterization of Bruce Bechdel was fantastic. I also loved how Bechdel illustrated the role sociopolitical and literary context played in her upbringing. I can't recall many works off the top of my head that utilizes such a compelling and integrated approach to allusion. It took some time to get used to the almost constant referencing, though. I'm undecided (as I think lots of people will be) over whether that plot device was a little overused. Leaning towards no, just because landmarks of my life have also been too often literary.

I'm not opposed to laboured stories. I like having to sift through complex story lines, characters, and the prose itself. I think that experience is arguably more satisfying than a simple, quick, fast-paced read. My problem with Bechdel's graphic novel memoir form is that I didn't feel any sort of revelatory conclusion, not the way I think this sort of book aims to achieve. It may have been the hype surrounding this book, from friends and the guy who sold me my copy. Or it could have been the content itself, the fact that I couldn't relate to Bechdel's portrayal of herself or her mother. While it wasn't the life-changing, awesome book I hoped it would be, I think it serves a very specific function and should be a graphic novel must-read.

Jess Johansson

I can't stop thinking about this story. It's such a queer tale of queerness, of coming of age, of coming out. I can relate a lot to the distance she feels (or portrays) towards her family and her childhood. And also the suffocation that comes from the roles we become pigeon-holed into for life (mother/father/son/daughter). The story itself is tragic (it does live up to the name) but also feels inevitable.

Likely some real smart literary references that went way over my head because I'm not very well-read. There is a lot of care and love that went into this novel despite the fraught relationships within it. I'm so glad it exists, that I read it. Would love to see the play!

Fraser Simons

Some aspects of this, such as the stark juxtaposition between the author and her father, lit (criticism), and queer stories—both explicit and reading—work incredibly well. They become entirely convincing and engrossing, and when this story is at its best. 

The structure, however, kind of undermines the fact that the author clearly knows this is the heart of the story. Remixing beats and going on digressions in order for it to serve two masters; the lesser being so much less interesting it becomes not much more than a stop gap to the “good stuff”. Even the paneling, line work; heck maybe all of the visual craft is not as good as when we get to the heart of things. It goes from a busy body (literally), to an impeccable, almost flawless piece of auto memoir. 

Or whatever this is. Personally, as I grow older and memory affects me differently, I find that there is only ever fiction. But I do understand people need their lies, as this story itself shows.

✨Tyler ✨

4.5. I don't know what to say besides wow. this is something special.

Fun Home A Family Tragicomic

Reviews

Highlights