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Fun Home

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Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
AuthorAlison Bechdel
Cover artistAlison Bechdel
LanguageEnglish
GenreGraphic novel, Autobiography
PublisherHoughton Mifflin
Publication date
June 8, 2006
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (Hardcover)
Pages240 p.
ISBNISBN 0-618-47794-2 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character

Fun Home (subtitled A Family Tragicomic) is a graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel, author of the comic strip Dykes to Watch out For. It chronicles the author's childhood and youth in rural Pennsylvania, focusing on her relationship with her father, Bruce Bechdel. In the New York Times Sunday Book Review, Sean Wilsey called Fun Home "a pioneering work, pushing two genres (comics and memoir) in multiple new directions."[1]

Fun Home is 240 pages long, and was published by Houghton Mifflin (Boston, New York) in June 2006; Bechdel's drawing style consists of black line art with a gray-green ink wash. The book spent two weeks on the New York Times' Hardcover Nonfiction bestseller list,[2][3][4] and was named one of the best books of 2006 by numerous sources.

Plot summary

A panel from Fun Home.
Bruce (left) and Alison Bechdel.

The memoir details various aspects of Bechdel's family life during her childhood and adolescence, with particular attention given to her relationship with her father, Bruce. Bruce was a funeral director and high school English teacher in Beech Creek, where Alison and her siblings grew up.

On one level, the memoir traces her father's obsession with restoring the family's Victorian home; Bruce's concentrated pursuit of this long-term aesthetic quest is connected to his emotional distance from Alison and her brothers. The memoir contends with the revelations of Bruce's homosexual relationships in college, the military, and with his high school students, some of whom were family friends and babysitters. His death at age 44 may have been a suicide, possibly motivated by Bechdel's mother requesting a divorce.

The story also deals with Bechdel's own struggle with her sexual identity, culminating in the realization that she is a lesbian and her coming out to her parents. The memoir frankly examines her sexual development, including transcripts from her childhood diary, anecdotes about masturbation, and tales of her first sexual experiences.

Fun Home incorporates allusions to various works of literature, including Joyce's Ulysses, Proust's In Search of Lost Time and Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, as well as a number of mythological references, such as the stories of Icarus, Daedalus, and Odysseus.

Acclaim and awards

Fun Home was positively reviewed in many publications, including the Los Angeles Times,[5] Salon.com[6] and the New York Times, which printed three separate stories about the book.[7][8][9] The Village Voice's review said that Fun Home "shows how powerfully— and economically—the medium can portray autobiographical narrative. With two-part visual and verbal narration that isn't simply synchronous, comics presents a distinctive narrative idiom in which a wealth of information may be expressed in a highly condensed fashion."[10],

Several publications listed Fun Home as one of the best books of 2006, including the New York Times,[11] Amazon.com,[12][13], The Times of London[14], New York magazine[15] and Publishers Weekly, which ranked it as the best comic book of 2006.[16] Salon Magazine named Fun Home the best nonfiction debut of 2006, admitting that they were fudging the definition of "debut" and saying, "Fun Home shimmers with regret, compassion, annoyance, frustration, pity and love — usually all at the same time and never without a pervasive, deeply literary irony about the near-impossible task of staying true to yourself, and to the people who made you who you are."[17] Entertainment Weekly called it the best nonfiction book of the year,[18] and Time named Fun Home the best book of 2006, describing it as "the unlikeliest literary success of 2006" and "a masterpiece about two people who live in the same house but different worlds, and their mysterious debts to each other."[19]

Fun Home was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award, in the memoir/autobiography category,[20][21] and was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic Book.[22] In 2007, Fun Home won the Stonewall Book Award for non-fiction,[23] the Publishing Triangle-Judy Grahn Nonfiction Award,[24] and the Lambda Literary Award in the "Lesbian Memoir and Biography" category.[25] Fun Home was nominated for the 2007 Eisner Awards in two categories, Best Reality-Based Work and Best Graphic Album, and Bechdel was nominated as Best Writer/Artist.[26] Fun Home won the Eisner for Best Reality-Based Work.[27]

Removal from public library

In October 2006, a resident of Marshall, Missouri attempted to have Fun Home and Blankets by Craig Thompson removed from the city's public library.[28] Supporters of the books' removal characterized them as "pornography" and expressed concern that they would be read by children.[29] Marshall Public Library Director Amy Crump defended the books as having been well-reviewed in "reputable, professional book review journals," and characterized the removal attempt as a step towards "the slippery slope of censorship". [28][29] On October 11, 2006, the library's board appointed a committee to create a materials selection policy, and removed Fun Home and Blankets from circulation until the new policy was approved.[30][31] The committee "decided not to assign a prejudicial label or segregate [the books] by a prejudicial system",[32] and presented a materials selection policy to the board.[33] On March 14, 2007, the Marshall Public Library Board of Trustees voted to return both Fun Home and Blankets to the library's shelves.[34]

References

  1. ^ Wilsey, Sean (2006-06-18). "The Things They Buried". Sunday Book Review. The New York Times. Retrieved 2006-08-07. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help)
  2. ^ "Hardcover Nonfiction" (free registration required). New York Times. 2006-07-09. Retrieved 2006-12-18. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ "Hardcover Nonfiction" (free registration required). New York Times. 2006-07-16. Retrieved 2006-12-18. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ Burkeman, Oliver (2006-10-16). "A life stripped bare" (free registration required). The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-01-22. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ Soloway, Jill (2006-06-04). "Skeletons in the closet" (paid archive). Los Angeles Times. p. R. 12. Retrieved 2007-08-01. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ Wolk, Douglas (2006-06-05). "Fun Home". Salon.com. Retrieved 2006-08-12. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference nyt1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Gustines, George Gene (2006-06-26). "'Fun Home': A Bittersweet Tale of Father and Daughter" (free registration required). The New York Times. Retrieved 2006-08-07. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ Bellafante, Ginia (2006-08-03). "Twenty Years Later, the Walls Still Talk" (paid archive). The New York Times. Retrieved 2006-08-07. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ Chute, Hillary (2006-07-11). "Gothic Revival". The Village Voice. Retrieved 2006-08-07. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ "100 Notable Books of the Year" (free registration required). Sunday Book Review. New York Times. 2006-12-03. Retrieved 2006-12-12. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. ^ "Best Books of 2006: Editors' Top 50". amazon.com. Retrieved 2006-12-18.
  13. ^ "Best of 2006 Top 10 Editors' Picks: Memoirs". amazon.com. Retrieved 2006-12-18.
  14. ^ Gatti, Tom (2006-12-16). "The 10 best books of 2006: number 10 — Fun Home". The Times. Retrieved 2006-12-18. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  15. ^ Bonanos, Christopher (2006-12-18 cover date). "The Year in Books". New York. Retrieved 2006-12-12. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  16. ^ "The First Annual PW Comics Week Critic's Poll". Publishers Weekly Online. Publishers Weekly. 2006-12-19. Retrieved 2006-12-19. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  17. ^ Miller, Laura (2006-12-12). "Best debuts of 2006". salon.com. Retrieved 2006-12-12. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  18. ^ Bechdel, Alison (2006-12-22). "Bloody hell again". Retrieved 2006-12-23.
  19. ^ Grossman, Lev (2006-12-17). "10 Best Books". Time. Retrieved 2006-12-18. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  20. ^ Getlin, Josh (2007-01-21). "Book Critics Circle nominees declared" (free abstract of paid archive). Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2007-01-22. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  21. ^ "NBCC Awards Finalists". National Book Critics Circle website. Retrieved 2007-01-22.
  22. ^ "18th ANNUAL GLAAD MEDIA AWARDS NOMINEES". GLAAD Media Awards website. Retrieved 2007-01-27.
  23. ^ "Holleran, Bechdel win 2007 Stonewall Book Awards" (PDF). Cognotes. American Library Association. 2007-01-22. p. 4. Retrieved 2007-01-24. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  24. ^ "Alison Bechdel Among Triangle Award Winners". The Book Standard. 2007-05-08. p. 1. Retrieved 2007-05-09. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  25. ^ "Lambda Literary Awards Announce Winners". Lambda Literary Foundation. Retrieved 2007-06-05.
  26. ^ "The 2007 Eisner Awards: 2007 Master Nominations List". San Diego Comic-Con website. Retrieved 2007-07-31.
  27. ^ "The 2007 Eisner Awards: Winners List". San Diego Comic-Con website. Retrieved 2007-07-31.
  28. ^ a b Sims, Zach (2006-10-03). "Library trustees to hold hearing on novels". The Marshall Democrat-News. Retrieved 2006-10-08. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  29. ^ a b Sims, Zach (2006-10-05). "Library board hears complaints about books/Decision scheduled for Oct. 11 meeting". The Marshall Democrat-News. Retrieved 2006-10-08. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  30. ^ Brady, Matt (2006-10-12). "MARSHALL LIBARAY BOARD VOTES TO ADOPT MATERIALS SELECTION POLICY". Newsarama. Retrieved 2006-10-12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  31. ^ Sims, Zach (2006-10-12). "Library board votes to remove 2 books while policy for acquisitions developed". The Marshall Democrat-News. Retrieved 2006-10-12. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  32. ^ Harper, Rachel (2007-01-25). "Library board ready to approve new materials selection policy". The Marshall Democrat-News. Retrieved 2007-01-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  33. ^ Harper, Rachel (2007-02-08). "Library policy has first reading". The Marshall Democrat-News. Retrieved 2007-03-05. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  34. ^ Harper, Rachel (2007-03-15). "Library board approves new policy/Material selection policy created, controversial books returned to shelves". The Marshall Democrat-News. Retrieved 2007-03-15. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
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