Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

The book is a bit over hyped. Alison Bechdel has an interesting art style so it's a good read. Bu the narrative captures the reader only in parts.

Unlikely to appeal to readers unfamiliar with the American context.

One of the best graphic novels I have ever read. Highly recommended. Brutally honest and courageous work.

Fun Home was my introduction to Alison Bechdel and I enjoyed it very much - it is a beautiful, raw and poignant book that is also funny in parts. It is similar to Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis in the sense that it also uses humor to deal with serious issues, but it leans more towards being a "confessional" graphic novel than Persepolis does. I have just ordered a second book - a compilation of her Dykes to Watch Out For series, which ran successfully for 25 years and is considered one of the earliest representations of LGBTs in American popular culture.

I had this for My visual Literature Course so purchased it.While It did not capture my attention from the start, It did manage to have a lasting impact on me and my perception of the word "lesbian" for some reason.I do believe this book is one of those rare books that can convey the underlying sense of being in an ostracised community.Maybe because of my cultural influence I viewed the book a bit differently at first glance,I thought it would be boring too.Once I got into it , It was a smooth ride and I truly understood within my limited understanding.Bechdel may have told her own life to us, which doesn't require much creativity, but she has done so well with the references to literature and other works made in her book."Fun home" requires a reader who has already read extensively to gain a sense of what she is trying to convey.There are two ways of reading this book, one as a direct straight read and the other is reading with the intention to draw meaning and deeper resonance in the text.I think her book is meant for the latter, I simply cannot do that at this point of my existence-I lack knowledge and insight myself.Her book is just like her life, Imperfect and grey and yet I think it is a wonderful and delicate balance she holds as an artist and an author.NOTE-Initially I gave this book 4 stars and a negative review, but on further analysis, I realised my own incompetence was the reason I could not/and still cannot fully understand the work.

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel is a graphic memoir. It's the author's story of her relationship with her father. She comes as a lesbian in college and later finds out that her father is gay. The book is very emotional and shows an extremely complicated family dynamic. I really admire the author in penning down her own story in this wonderful graphic novel. .

The most beautiful book to be ever read. Bechdel's life from a confused child and a distant teen to a woman who explores her life throughout, gives one immense satisfaction of having completed something that isn't any different than a fictional story had that been concluded.

Overhyped (as most such books are) and honestly it's super hard to relate because her narration of life is way too middle-American white even for someone raised on American media.

I chose this for my bookclub to read as an example of a graphic novel, none of us ever having read one before. I quickly realised that this was a memoir which made it even more interesting.From the start there are pointers that her life is developing into a tragic tale. We are left in no doubt that her father was a complicated man with many internal torments.The language is rich and luxurious with the great use of some unusual words (one or two even had me looking up definitions).I've now read a few graphic books and think this book is put together brilliantly. The words and pictures both add to each other. There is great detail in the graphics as well, many of which add more to the story than the words can alone.There is much tragedy but it is related in a blackly humorous way (man times crossing back and forward the line between comedy and tragedy).The narrative sections break into four types: the overall story telling, dialogue in speech bubbles, occasional explanatory notes and labels highlighting an element of a drawing.Essentially the book is about a father and daughter relationship. They struggle to come to terms with their differences whilst refusing to acknowledge their obvious similarities. Much of the commonality is around literature and the arts, leading to a few points where the author relies too heavily on literary references. However, I very much liked the reliance on the artistic talents in the family, particularly the mother's acting which allows her to step away from her real world.What strikes me most about this book is the depth of emotion that is written into every, carefully chosen, word. It can be a cliche to say that the process of writing is cathartic but, with this book, that feels appropriate.

I've just finished this beautiful graphic novel. It's an inspiring read that's so incredibly well crafted and carefully illustrated, every flick of her pen tells a part of the story, every word placed as precisely as her father would each item in their home.She was a literature student, so if you're a literature buff you will probably enjoy a lot of references that likely went straight over my head. I'm guessing there was probably a lot deeper thematic references I'm missing not actually being as well read as I'd like to be.But even if you aren't a literary buff, it's a story that takes you on an proper journey and by the end of it my heart is with hers and I feel the beauty of the pain from which she writes, without ever screaming about. Couldn't recommend it more.

I really enjoyed this graphic memoir; the pictures are lovely - so well-drawn - there is one of the author as she represents herself walking up through some woods with her father, and it is such a beautiful picture. Oh, to be able to draw like that1The story is compelling as well, a memoir told in a comic strip format which works really well. The author/artist is relating the story of her childhood growing up with her father and mother in her family's funeral home. Her father is also a homosexual and conducts a number of affairs with younger men throughout his married life. The story, the author seems keen to inform the reader, is her interpretation of her history. There is, it seemed to me, a covert allusion to the fact that some of her story might be false, because, as we all know, memory can be flawed and one can only ever represent one understanding of it. I loved the way her father seemed to see her family life (according to her) as "a still life with children" - family seemed, to him, to be a work of art - as was her father's refurbishment of the house they lived in. This is an unusual memoir and one I would definitely recommend.

I've not read many graphic stories. (The closest I can think of is logicomix.) This is more of an autobiography, focusing on the author's father. I thought it was intriguing and engaging. I imagine it will stick in my head for a fair while. I found the drawings very transparent; they weren't screaming "look at my drawing", but "look at what my drawings are of". I really liked that, the portrayal of the characters, the balance of pictures and text, and the author's perspective.

The graphic novel is a genre not widely associated with serious subjects. It’s a longer comic book for readers who prefer their cartoons with hardback covers and a hefty price tag. But that presumption misses the point of the graphic novel by a long stretch, not least when it’s Alison Bechdel doing the storytelling.Her 2006 graphic memoir Fun Home actually represents two genres, one that is not widely read and another that is growing in strength, so much so that US colleges have added it to their reading lists for liberal arts students. Fun Home attracted criticism from more conservative students, who disagree with its sexual content and imagery. The fact that colleges believe students can learn from a graphic novel—and the novel can cause such a stir—is a testament to its ingenuity.Bechdel sees no need to tell the story of her father’s death, the emergence of her own homosexuality and everything that led up to the two in a linear fashion. Instead, she zips between her family home, the title funeral home, her college classes and trips away with her mother, father and siblings, choosing to join the chapters by her feelings towards particular situations or events rather than in any traditional sequence. The story centres around the death of Bechdel’s father and what it means to her. Bechdel’s journeys into the past reveal a father who preferred to restore houses than spend time with his daughter, and who slept with men, often his students, behind the back of his wife and family.Fun Home delivers the tragedy in Bechdel’s life with comedic aplomb, illustrating key scenes from her childhood and adolescence in a cartoon style that harks back to the comics that came before. Particularly revealing is a snapshot of a certain letter from father to daughter, because his indecipherable handwriting means all the reader has is the narrator’s reflections. Lacking context, Bechdel’s narrator must be relied upon, and the next page reveals the last time she saw her father, in an illustration that shows them getting on as well as they can, sat next to each other playing the piano. “It was unusual, and we were close. But close enough,” remarks Bechdel’s narrator.The strength of Fun Home is in its yearning to understand fatherhood and sexuality and everything else that goes on during the chronicled period of Bechdel’s life. Her narrator never settles on definitive conclusions—it’s not entirely clear if Bechdel’s father committed suicide or was the victim of an accident—but prefers somewhere in the middle, which is both a challenge and a joy for the reader, who too wants to understand where Bechdel’s narrator is coming from, and is likely going next.Besides the cartoonish illustrations and dry dialogue is a narration that touches on literature of all kinds, as Bechdel likens texts and passages to points in her own time. What’s created is a flowing story that peaks and troughs and runs wild and streams slowly, as Bechdel’s narrator attempts to grow closer to her father, and if not, understand him, and failing that, hate him. When that doesn’t work, she learns to be like him. And the reader is left wondering if there was really anything wrong at all.