Review: Fun Home

Title:  Fun Home - A Family Tragicomic

Author:  Alison Bechdel

Publisher:  Mariner Books, 2006

Plot Summary:
Alison Bechdel grew up in a small Pennsylvania town, where her father worked part-time at the family funeral home business.  Her parents had married in Germany, but by the time Alison is old enough to understand family dynamics, she realizes that her family members isolate themselves from each other, that they don't interact the way other families do.  Her parents fight a lot, when they actually talk to each other.  Her father loves gardening and decorating, and her mother acts in local productions and is working on a huge thesis statement.  When Alison goes to college and realizes she's a lesbian, she comes out to her parents and only after that does she realize that her father also is gay.  This graphic novel is Bechdel's attempt to reconcile her childhood memories with her new knowledge of her father and their relationship.

My first graphic novel experience was a prequel to George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series.  I still have it on my shelf.  I didn't much like it, and I never tried to read another graphic novel.  The closest I ever got was The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which is a YA novel that has a lot of important pictures in it.  But Nymeth reviews graphic novels quite often on her blog, and they always look so pretty.  And it just seems like a really interesting and novel approach to telling a story.  So with a little nudging from Nymeth and some help from a co-worker, I decided to try another.  My co-worker lent me Fun Home last week, saying that if one wants to really give graphic novels a chance, it's better to start with the memoirs than the fantasy ones.  And, as I enjoyed Fun Home, I'd have to agree with her.

I don't really know how to review a graphic novel.  Focus on the words?  On the pictures?  I don't have much to say about the pictures.  They add to the story, yes, and I enjoyed looking at them, but I can't say much about how Bechdel's artistry compares to other graphic novelists.  When I first started reading, I'd look at the panels for some time before reading the associated text.  But as I got further into the story, I switched- read the text first and then looked at the pictures.  I'm not sure which way is better, or if there is a right or wrong way.  I did feel as though it required much more concentration on my part to read this graphic novel than if I were just reading a book with only text, because I kept feeling like I'd miss something in the pictures if I didn't look closely enough.  Hopefully I didn't!

What I liked most about this book was the author's way of referring to so many other books.  Bechdel obviously knows her classics, and I loved the way she set up parallels between her life and the works of Collette, James Joyce, Oscar Wilde and Odysseus.  It was done so well, and while this book put off my reading of Joyce's Ulysses indefinitely, I really enjoyed all the allusions to so many books.

I also thought that Alison's portrayal of her parents was done well.  Both of them develop into very strong characters in the novel, and it's obvious that their lives took a turn they didn't expect when they moved back to Pennsylvania and had a family.  I often wonder what my parents would have done with their lives if they didn't have children.  I think they would have spent a lot more time jet-setting around the world.  It's always a jarring moment, I think, when children realize that their parents could have led very different lives if their kids just hadn't shown up.

In contrast, I don't think Alison developed the characters of her brothers much at all.  I don't know if this was done on purpose, but I assume it was.  But I found it really sad, considering how close my relationship with my siblings is.

I think Fun House was a really good introduction to graphic novels for me.  I don't think I fell in love with the genre through it, but I'm definitely willing to try out some more.  I'm glad I tried this one, and if anyone else hasn't really tried graphic novels and wants to give them a try, I think this is a good first foray into them.