Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

By Alison Bechdel

CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED, NATIONAL BESTSELLER 

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY

Time Magazine #1 Book of the Year • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist 

Winner of the Stonewall Book Award • Double finalist for the Lambda Book Award 

Alison Bechdel’s groundbreaking, bestselling literary graphic memoir that charts her fraught relationship with her late father. 

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.

In her hands, personal history becomes a work of amazing subtlety and power, a unique coming-of-age story written with controlled force and enlivened with humor, rich literary allusion, and heartbreaking detail.

How does a daughter resolve the legacy of mystery left by the man she called her father?

• Family Secrets: Growing up in the family funeral home, nicknamed the “Fun Home,” was only the first layer of mystery in a household built on secrets.
• LGBTQ+ Coming of Age: As Alison comes out as a lesbian in college, she makes a discovery about her father that forces her to re-examine her entire childhood.
• A Complicated Father-Daughter Story: A raw and honest exploration of a fraught relationship with a distant, exacting, and enigmatic father.
• Literary Nonfiction: A narrative woven with rich literary allusions and heartbreaking honesty that redefines what a graphic memoir can be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jun 5, 2007
• ISBN: 9780547347004

Alison Bechdel

Alison Bechdel’s cult following for her early comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For expanded wildly for her family memoirs, the New York Times bestselling and Time magazine #1 Book of the Year graphic memoir Fun Home, adapted into a Tony Award–winning musical, and Are You My Mother? Most recently, The Secret to Superman Strength was named a New York Times Best Graphic Novel of 2021. Bechdel has been named a MacArthur Fellow, among many other honors.

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Reviews for Fun Home

[jscape2000 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The first comic book that showed me that the genre isn't just super powered soap operas. Every year that goes by underscores what a rare and special book this is. Indisputably required reading and one of the greatest stories ever put on the page.

[kayanelson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read very few graphic novels which in this case was a memoir. A memoir of few words because the drawings add all the details and descriptions that a 100% written memoir would use words for. Alison’s 60s and 70s childhood was different. Her father constantly refurbishing the house. He was also a closeted homosexual who preyed on young men. Her mother was in denial. And Alison herself realized that she was a lesbian. A unique childhood that despite having some dark times also had some happy memories.

[kylekatz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

2006. Bechdel has always been the author I felt most closely portrayed the lesbian culture I came of age into. She is five years older than me, so she got to writing about everything just when I was living it.

Fun Home describes her childhood In Pennsylvania. Her father ran a funeral home. He was into Historical Restoration and restored their house. He also had affairs with young men. When Alison came out in College he killed himself.

The book is an intellectual feast and reckoning with her past. I don’t know how she came to be able to put her life out there so nakedly for all of us, but it is such a gift.

[labfs39 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This graphic memoir has become a classic, both as a graphic work and as a lesbian memoir. In it Alison Bechdel explores her relationship with her father, a closeted homosexual, and the development of her identity both as a reaction to and an inverse of her father.

Alison grew up in Pennsylvania with her two brothers in a large house loving restored by her father. He was an English teacher, and the memoir is permeated with works of literature as both visual and thematic touchpoints. His passion, however, was for architectural restoration and gardening, as well as the teen boys he hired to help. Her mother seemed to be working on her Master's thesis for much of Alison's childhood and acting in community theatre. It's only as a young adult, and her own coming out, that she learns of her father's proclivities and their effect on her parents' relationship.

The artwork is dense, usually five frames per page, with lots of text, including excerpts from letters and other texts. A single blue-green color is used to color the pen and ink drawings. It's a style that conveys a lot of information and suits the rather monotone voice of the work.

[carriewuj · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read this in preparation of seeing the musical, knowing nothing about either version - hmmm - will be an interesting adaptation! Certainly wasn't the 'fun home' that a title like that would evoke. My eyes have been opened. Excellent story all the same and I always appreciate an occasional graphic novel because it is such a fresh way of reading. So, 'fun home,' not to hopefully ruin it for anyone, refers to Funeral Home - the family business, and this is what the author/narrator and her siblings called it when her grandfather died and her father took over. Luckily, they did not need to live there - they had their own funereal home, but they had to 'work' there, doing weekly chores to keep it clean. Their own home and family life was rather toxic, and the physical house itself represents that (think Poe) It was a fixer-upper and her father (the more problematic parent) was intent on restoring the Victorian to its original glory and no detail was overlooked. "My father could spin garbage into gold. He was an alchemist of appearance, a savant of surface, a Daedalus of decor." (6) This led to a very slow renovation process, much done by hand, more child labor, and then a museum 'don't touch' atmosphere as rooms were completed. "If anything [the decorative ornaments] were embellishments in the worse sense. They were lies. He used his skillful artifice not to make things but to makes things appear to be what they were not." (16) Alison's mother Helen is an actress, who has to be content with community theatre after marrying Bruce and moving to his hometown of Beech Creek. Since it's the early 70s for the seminal years of the story, there is some typical gender role responsibilities, but overall both parents are selfish and indulge their own interests. "Our home was like an artist colony. We ate together, but otherwise were absorbed in our separate pursuits." (134) Both are English teachers as a default, but books are a rich part of the family and Alison's upbringing. Sometimes it is the only way she and her distant, troubled father can communicate. Later she learns the root of some of his issues: he is a homosexual, but obviously not free to live that lifestyle in that time period, so he has built up the facade (like his house) of middle class family life, though he does have some relationships with his male HS students, which becomes a bigger issue. Alison is emerging from adolescence with her own sexual identity and 'officially' comes out to her parents in college, to mixed reception. In some ways it strengthens her relationship with and empathy for her father, but her mother is very angry and remote. This is subtitled a 'tragicomedy' for good reason because an accident becomes her father's legacy and Alison's ultimate understanding. The pictures are phenomenal - especially when it comes to facial expression and the setting, and the narration is both intimate and detached. Perfect mix of forms.

[mav1n1libby · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I think maybe I was not smart enough for this book. Overall, I did enjoy it. And also the first graphic novel I've ever read, so maybe I'm not the right audience. I enjoyed the pictures and the family life, but I got lost in all the references to other books and plays I had not read, so I think a lot of the context was lost on me. Also, this is yet another book that I'm reading where the father dies. I picked this up because I'm doing a reading contest and one of the topics was read a book that was based on a Broadway play, so I picked this up. I'm glad I did and overall, enjoyed the story about the father and his life and the main character realization of life and coming out. I just missed too many of the references.

[norabelle414 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Alison Bechdel had an unusual childhood, raised by intellectuals in a very small town where they helped run the family funeral home, sometimes called “fun home”. She recreates her childhood in comics form, based on her own extensive journals but with incisive hindsight. She pays special attention to her father, a very flawed, closeted queer man, who died in an accident (or possibly suicide) shortly after Alison came out as a lesbian in college.

I understood going in that this was a pioneer of graphic memoirs and was prepared to appreciate it in that context, but even by today's standards Fun Home is a piece of art. The simple drawings never distract from the story she's telling, and she is open about her attempt to bring her father to life through the illustrations. I especially enjoyed the narration, through captions, which made it feel like Alison was showing me a story instead of expecting me to get lost in the illustrations, which I find hard to do. The story itself is very moving, and as a memoir alone it’s incredibly adept. If you’ve been putting this one off, don’t forget about it, because it really holds up.

[charon07 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I’m a fan of Bechdel’s comic “Dykes to Watch Out For,” so I don’t know why I waited so long to read this highly acclaimed memoir. It certainly deserves the accolades. It’s a moving and heartfelt contemplation of Bechdel’s relationship with her father, primarily. Her father died while she was in college, just after she came out as a lesbian, and it’s not clear whether his death was an accident or a suicide. The puzzle of her father’s own sexuality, his relationship with his family, how he felt about his closeted life in their small town running the family business (a funeral home, a.k.a. “fun home”) are all examined this way and that, as Bechdel clearly tries to make sense of her fraught relationship with him. It’s frank, funny, and tragic in turns. For a graphic novel (of which I don’t read many and about which I think I have some prejudices) it’s surprisingly literary, and I have to admire Bechdel’s honesty.

[rknickme · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A truly moving memoir that effortlessly weaves the art and the story together. I was very impressed with the technical skill and the beauty of the drawing. The story too manages to be both tragic and in some ways uplifting in the end. An amazing portrait of the intricate complexities of families and growing up.

[rosienotrose · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow this is a stunning read! Fun Home has big themes; family dynamics, identity, self discovery, but at it’s heart is a story of a father and daughter. Or two stories really, first Bechdel’s attempts to connect with her father as a child and later, her trying to understand him and their relationship after she comes out and discovers her fathers’ relationships with men.

Bechdel illustrates her unusual upbringing and own growing awareness of her sexuality well along with her father’s obsessive renovation hobby, and his gruff and distant personality. When she comes out to her parents (by letter no less) she feels this will be a stepping away from her family – something she sees as a desired freedom - only to be pulled back in when learning of her own fathers’ sexuality and his death weeks later.

“I'd been upstaged, demoted from protagonist in my own drama to comic relief in my parents' tragedy”

Bechdel also weaves in literary references and artistic expressions, adding another layer to the memoir. She examines how storytelling and creative outlets can provide a lens for understanding oneself and making sense of the world. It's like a treasure hunt for bookworms, with nods to literature that make you nod in recognition or want to seek out to read for yourself.

I would encourage everyone to read this graphic memoir that delves into universal themes of family, identity, and acceptance.

[ladylast · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A lovely memoir in comic form. Not the best artwork or content, but very enjoyable to read and may be quite beneficial for an LGBTQ reader in their coming of age-- unfortunately I think that chapter of my life has already passed me by, so I am not the ideal audience for this particular tome. Still, time well spent reading it.

[caedocyon · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

You can read this over and over again and get something new out of it every time. And I'm sure I'm missing loads. A real work of literature, in comic form. Fuckin' genius.

[nogomu · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was impressed by its complexity, but I can't say I loved reading it.

[eavans-914612 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I finally read this after years of everyone yelling at me because even my damn therapist said I should. (Un?)Fortunately related to the weird closeted gay dad thing, which was comforting to know existed in some sort of media and am really here for more of, but could not relate to the majority for obvious reasons of not being a lesbian or attracted primarily to women for the time being. It's my own ill but I genuinely enjoyed and would recommend it.

[jannes_16 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

 One of the true monumental classics of graphic fiction. Heart-wrenching, insightful and endlessly engaging. A microcosm of queerness in the 20th century. A must-read

[moshepit20 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

 I had average hopes for this book and I ended up hating it.

[Meduss142 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's the first graphic novel I've read by this author, and I found both her writing style and her family quite peculiar. After all, we all hide something, and Bechdel found out on the very day she told her family she was a lesbian that her father was also homosexual. A shocking piece of news that becomes filled with mystery when he dies shortly after, although it remains unclear whether it was by accident or suicide.

Reflecting on her childhood, the author offers a contemplation on that enigmatic father figure, highlighting the importance of emotional education and communication, and how her parents, both intellectuals and geniuses in their own ways, influenced her worldview. She also discusses death, which we prefer to ignore, but she regards with indifference.

She mixes humor with a sad situation due to the reality of the story's characters, prompting reflection on how important it is to be ourselves and appreciate what we have, regardless of others' opinions. (Translated from Spanish)

[akbouterse · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked this. I've read almost no graphic novels so I don't have much to compare this one to, but I found it very interesting. I'm in New York right now and I'm seeing the musical based on this story so I wanted to read the book first. I liked the way the story was told. The story did switch time periods a lot but I was always able to follow along. Ou could tell that this was a very personal story and that made this book a lot more interesting. While I was reading it I couldn't really imagine how someone could take this story and turn it into a musical so I'm excited to see how the musical will play out.

[reader1009-863136 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Adult graphic memoir. Alison describes her childhood (growing up around a funeral home with two English teachers for parents) and her changing relationship with her father when she announces that she's a lesbian. Soon after, she learns from her mother that her father has been having affairs with other men and some teen boys. Lots of feminist/lesbian/gay literature references, which were a bit over my head; the story didn't really resonate with me (and probably wouldn't, to anyone outside of that culture), but it contains a lot of substance, and I can understand why it's received such rave reviews.

[librolindsay · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Rounding up a bit. Overall, it's a riveting look at her Bechdel's family life, but the structure felt a little off. The beginning drew me in, but as it progressed, it jumped around to a degree that the overall momentum began to drag.

[novelcommentary · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed reading and viewing Alison Bechdel's Fun House, which is the name given to the funeral home where her dad is a part time undertaker. He is also the high school's English teacher and a fanatical restorer of the old Victorian house where she and her two brother's were raised. In this amazing piece of work we experience, both in illustrations and words, the coming of age and the coming out of the author as she wrestles with the complicated relationship she has with her dad.
The NYT extols, .."A comic book for lovers of words! Bechdel's rich language and precise images combine to create a lush piece of work — a memoir where concision and detail are melded for maximum, obsessive density." In addition, her many literary references add to the narrative here: Henry James, Fitzgerald, Camus, Faulkner, and especially Joyce. Have to thank my niece for giving me this book, certainly a genre I wouldn't have normally chosen. Highly recommend
Lines:

“But how could he admire Joyce’s lengthy, libidinal ‘yes’ so fervently and end up saying ‘no’ to his own life? I suppose that a lifetime spent hiding one’s erotic truth could have a cumulative renunciatory effect.
Sexual shame is in itself a kind of death.”

The sudden approximation of my dull, provincial life to a New Yorker cartoon was exhilarating.”

It’s true that he didn’t kill himself until I was nearly twenty. But 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.”

On a map of my hometown, a circle a mile and a half in diameter circumscribes: (A) Dad's grave, (B) the spot on Route 150 where he died, near an old farmhouse he was restoring, (C) the house where he and my mother raised our family, and (D) the farm where he was born."

Sometimes, when things were going well, I think my father actually enjoyed having a family. Or at least, the air of authenticity we leant to his exhibit. A sort of still life with children."

"What if Icarus hadn't hurtled into the sea? What if he'd inherited his father's inventive bent? What might he have wrought? He did hurtle into the sea, of course. But in the tricky reverse narration that impels our entwined stories, he was there to catch me as I leapt." 

I kept still, like he was a splendid deer I didn't want to startle.

[evenlake_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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.

[oldandnewbooksmell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In this graphic memoir, Alison Bechdel discusses her relationship with her late father as well as an account of growing up uncomfortable in your own skin and knowing you are different.

This book had a lot of text in it for being a graphic novel… It almost put me off reading it, but I wanted to see what could cause this book to be on the challenged/banned list (you can see my theme this year).

Did I like this book, yes. It felt like an honest, well written memoir. The way Alison Bechdel talked about her father and the way she sees him changes over time is well written as well - filled with anger, confusion, and uncertainty.

Did I absolutely love it, no. Again, I think it goes back to the fact that there was so much inner dialog on the pages, it felt like I was reading more of a memoir with pictures and not a graphic novel with text… if that makes sense…

This is an interesting graphic novel filled with self discovery and the relationship one has with their parents.

[kevix-649105 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

excellent art and vocabulary that mirror the family. portrait of a family that has artifice and bubbling underneath is tragedy waiting to happen and a discovery to be made.

[drfuriosa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A fascinating, elusive, and slippery memoir about family, identity, and reading. I read this in 2010 for a class and find it just as compelling.

[narshkite · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

By accident of when books became available through the library, my time reading this overlapped with my time reading In the Dream House. These are very different books, but both are memoirs by queer women which focus in part on issues of self-identification, and do so using non-traditional forms. Another parallel? Both books are truly remarkable. Bechdel's personal story is surprising, both hard to believe and hard to not believe. Her father is revealed so honestly, truly warts and all, and also with great love. Great anger too, lots and lots of anger, but love too. And Bechdel's father did many many despicable things. I don't want to delve into anything that would be a spoiler, but I will say that it took someone very special to make him a sympathetic character (without ever absolving him for the terrible things he did.) I am not usually a graphics fan, but the form worked so well here I forgot I didn't like it. I have mentioned in reviews of other graphic memoirs and novels that I liked them, but would have liked them more if the stories had been told in a more traditional narrative, but not here. This was completely satisfying and brilliant, and it is the first time Ulysses has been explained to me in a way that makes sense.

[CondeD · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fun Home struck me as a very "Freudian" story between father and daughter. While regarding the family in general, there is a rawness and emotional repression that ends up transformed into some form of art, what stands out most is the personal inversion that occurs between Alison and her father: if he represses his sexuality, she lives it as an identity assertion; if he is neat and refined with his clothing, she feels that she is disguising herself every time she puts on a dress; if he uses his wit to make things seem like what they are not, she writes her reality as it is.

It is interesting to see how Alison analyzes the personality of that emotionally distant father, even though they are two sides of the same coin, and although I would trim some length from the comic, many people who have grown up in family environments similar to the author's will see themselves reflected in this web of secrets never spoken aloud. (Translated from Spanish)

[arubabookwoman · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I don't often read graphic novels/memoirs, but for years I've heard about how good this is. In fact, I thought I had already read it, because in my mind, I had somehow confused Alison Bechdel and Roz Chast, and somehow thought Can We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, which I have read, was this book. I now know better.

I loved this graphic memoir about growing up with a father who is a closeted homosexual and a mother who is deeply unhappy, as well a coming to terms with her own sexuality. The drawings are wonderfully expressive, though simple, and convey so much. The text is exquisite, true, and abounds with literary references for us bibliophiles. The book deserves all the hype. If you are one of the few who hasn't experienced this yet, READ It.

5 stars

[nancyjean19 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A smart and thoughtful (albeit esoteric at times) reflection on the many places where the author's life paralleled her father's. I was most surprised by how generous she was to her father's memory -- maybe too generous, in my opinion. But that's something I enjoy about memoirs. Because the author has no distance from the subject at hand, the reader is free to draw their own conclusions more so than in a piece of fiction.

[bobbybslax · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There are times when her eloquence reads more as pompous, but it all works for the kind of story she tells. Similarly, it sometimes feels like she relies a bit much on literary references, but in the end, it still feels honest. Despite my complaints I found it very well-written on the whole.