*Fun Home — Best of 2006
- Posted by Johanna on December 20, 2006 at 8:14 am
- Category: Graphic Novel Reviews
- CREDITS: by Alison Bechdel
- PUBLISHER: Houghton Mifflin, $19.95 US
Alison Bechdel has been writing and drawing the lesbian soap opera Dykes to Watch Out For for decades. Her comic strip characters are true to life, with one in particular resembling her and her attitudes closely. In her new book, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, she sets aside the fictionalization to present a memoir of her childhood.
The book revolves around her relationship with her father. As she describes him, he was an obsessive redecorater, consumed with the 18-year historical restoration of their house. He was demanding of his family, more interested in his projects than their feelings or interests. They learned early to leave him alone, not expressing affection or even commenting much.
From an early age, she formed her tastes in opposition to his. His love of the decorative and elaborate created in her a desire for the simple and functional. However, they had something significant in common, although again their expression differed greatly. Bechdel has created art from her lesbianism, while her father kept his homosexuality hidden behind the facades he carefully created.
From the beginning, she uses classical allusions for comparisons. It seems as though she’s using poetic description to distance herself from still-painful material. Bechdel handles her emotions in a way we today consider much more healthy, but both she and her father have a remoteness to their presence. Growing up, Bechdel was a tomboy, rejecting anything feminine in an attempt to balance her father’s lack of masculinity, apparent through contrast with the other men in their small farm town.
They both also have a love of literature, of naturally using references to books and myths to explain themselves. Sometimes, it’s the only way they can communicate, through lending each other reading material.
Bechdel seeks explanation of her parents’ relationship through a variety of literary models, including Proust, Fitzgerald, Henry James, Wilde, and Camus.
It’s not a surprise to learn that, while her father made a living as an English teacher, the family profession was running a funeral home. The way that occupation looks back at life, serving as guardians of etiquette while remaining unaffected by the lives they touch, is a perfect match for the story Bechdel tells. In a similar way, she’s examining her father’s life and death, seeking to find meaning and closure so she can live on. There’s also a certain perverse curiosity to tales involving embalming fluid and corpses, as so much television entertainment attests.
Bechdel’s style is straightforward. Her detailed drawings strive to present what she remembers accurately and with detail. The book is black-and-white with a blue-grey watercolor wash that provides depth and adds to the feeling of memory. Her characters are solid and realistic, only they rarely smile, and when they do, it’s a struggle. Maybe that’s also true to life.
One of her lessons from his life is that pretense lived thoroughly becomes real. I don’t know whether creating this brilliant book helped her finally experience the emotions she says are so remote to her and settle her suspicions about whether his death was a suicide; I’m just glad that I got the chance to read such an insightful, powerful exploration of life, death, and family relations.
Sample images are available at the publisher’s website. Bechdel was interviewed at AfterEllen and discusses her mother’s reaction at Slate.
December 20, 2006 at 5:24 pm
Now if someone would only collect DTWOF in hardcover.
December 20, 2006 at 11:39 pm
I’ve been a fan of DTOWF for years and years and yet, Fun Home still blew me away. I always knew she was good, but I didn’t know just how good. It’s so great to see a book on one of those end of the year lists that truly deserves all its honors and then some.
December 21, 2006 at 6:56 am
[...] Johanna Draper Carlson reviews Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. [...]
December 21, 2006 at 11:12 pm
[...] Fun Home – Best of 2006 – Johanna from Comics Worth Reading spotlights creator Alison Bechdel, best known for her long running strip Dykes To Watch Out For, and her new book Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic which was recently named one of Time magazine’s Ten Best Books of 2006 (from Comics Worth Reading) [...]
December 25, 2006 at 9:11 pm
[...] Thanks to Dirk Deppey for pointing me towards the link. Dirk’s written a wonderful essay about the kind of cultural groupings that apply pressure on best-ofs and similar recognition at that link — start where he mentions Fun Home’s recognition. [...]
January 11, 2007 at 8:01 am
[...] Speaking of homosexual portrayals, Loren posts the lengthy GLAAD 2006 LGBT in Comics rundown. It mainly focuses on DC and Marvel books because GLAAD is concerned about visibility, and that’s what they think are best known in comics. Dirk Deppey (under the Comics Culture section) then rips apart this outdated assertion very entertainingly. Here’s just a small excerpt: Buried in the back list: Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, an “other label” (i.e. real-world major publisher Houghton-Mifflin) graphic novel that’s been named book of the year by Time Magazine, the best graphic novel of 2006 by any number of recognized national magazines, and given prominent display space in major chain bookstores. Oh, and sold a bunch of copies and was created by an actual, authentic lesbian. But that’s not as mainstream as the Justice Society of America! [...]
February 20, 2007 at 12:52 pm
[...] This is the first mention I’ve seen of a planned sequel to Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home to be called Love Life: A Case Study. [...]
February 25, 2007 at 10:15 pm
[...] also geeked out at the show — I was thrilled to have Alison Bechdel sign my copy of Fun Home and even add a sketch [...]
March 1, 2007 at 5:07 pm
[...] community-wide Reading Together Series. The focus is on three autobiographical works: Persepolis, Fun Home, and Cuckoo. Paul sends along the following information: You don’t have to have read the [...]
July 8, 2007 at 4:17 pm
[...] tradition of book reviews in comic form. Today, Paul Sizer provides a guest recommendation of Fun Home. Check it out! [...]
October 8, 2007 at 5:06 pm
[...] Lex Luthor’s Silver Age origin. In an unexpected result, the award went to Civil War #1 over Fun Home, Ganges #1, Mom’s Cancer, Pride of Baghdad, Schizo #4, and Solo #11 (featuring Sergio [...]
January 2, 2008 at 9:17 pm
[...] Fun Home: A Family TragicomicAs excellent as everyone says it is, this graphic memoir is all the more powerful for what it doesn’t show about Alison Bechdel’s father’s hidden life. [...]
September 1, 2008 at 2:34 pm
[...] about leaving home.” They’re aiming for readers of books like Mom’s Cancer or Fun Home. (Ambitious, since both of those garnered major awards when they came out two years [...]
December 4, 2008 at 8:02 am
[...] The superhero publishers tried their typical “glut” strategy, pumping out works unsuited for the audience and flooding the shelves, which resulted in projects that would be better for those readers (noted author names, for example) getting lost. Several book publishers set up ambitious graphic novel lines, only to find that the best-praised books don’t necessarily sell in accordance with expectations. A desire for more content quickly meant some works didn’t get the polish they needed. And yet, no one can dispute the successes, like Fun Home. [...]
March 19, 2009 at 6:36 am
[...] I’m reminded of Craig Thompson or Hope Larson. Pen? More Jen Sorensen. Occasionally a little Alison Bechdel. There’s probably many more I’m missing — the point is, these are accomplished [...]
July 11, 2009 at 6:42 pm
[...] the popularity of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, many readers wanted to see more work by her. Her earlier series, Dykes to Watch Out For (DTWOF), [...]