Book Review: Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

There are very few times in life when you read a book and feel like you have unearthed a hidden treasure that you did not know even existed! Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir "Fun Home" is one such book for me.

For those not familiar with Alison's work, she is the woman behind the now famous "Bechdel Test" for testing if a movie or book is gender biased, the one that checks if it features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. Author of a long running comic strip "Dykes To Watch Out For", her 2006 work "Fun Home" brought her critical and commercial international success. It has since been adopted into an off-Broadway musical.

"Fun Home" is a memoir, an illustrated memoir in graphic novel format. It talks of Alison's childhood and her relationship with her father. She grew up in a Gothic revival house that her father, Bruce, spent his days restoring. Bruce is "an alchemist of appearance, a savant of surface,  a daedalus of decor".  Astral lamps, girandoles and hepplewhite suite chairs abound in the house. When someone cannot find the scissors, they are told to go look in the chippendale. But if other children called the house a mansion, Alison did not like it. She resented the implication that her family is unusual in any way.

But unusual is what her family is, and her relationship with her father is complex. You get an inkling when, alluding to the Greek Mythology of Icarus and Daedalus she wonders "Was Daedalus really stricken with grief when Icarus fell into the sea? Or just disappointed by the design failure?"

Much of the beauty of this memoir is from Alison's mastery in weaving literary magic into her writing and the strength of the graphics that go with it. Her story is built recursively, telling and retelling the same event, each time revealing something more - not unlike a careful excavation by a passionate archaeologist. Rich literary allusion adds layers to the tale, evoking the perfect imagery and emotion to bring these very human relationships to life. Her personal experience impacts the way she interprets literature and literature impacts the way she interprets life. And the graphics - the detail, the thought that went into it, the way they tell their own story... the Raegan/Bush campaign, Watergate, Anita Bryant's homophobic campaign, the Seeker's hit song Georgy Girl, TV show Bewitched - all make their appearances in the graphics, in newspapers, on slogans or posters on walls, on TV, from a radio. There is a reason this book took 7 years to complete!

This book would be perfect material for high school or college English. (Although a South Carolina college has had its budget slashed for assigning Fun Home to its students) The number of allusions could literally form a "How many have you read" quiz! Enriching debates could be had on Alison's interpretations of Greek mythology, classic literature, even children's novels, fairy tales and magazines.  If like me however, you are past your English lesson days - read this to provoke your thoughts, to be amazed by the beauty of language, to be swept away by the emotions and heartbreak of this haunting graphic memoir.