Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

Title: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Author: Alison Bechdel
Author's Website: www.dykestowatchoutfor.com

ISBN: 978-0-618-47794-4

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Copyright Date: 2006

Genre:  Comedy, Graphic Novel, Non-Fiction
Reading Level/Interest Age: 16-18

Awards: Booklist, 2006. Library Journal, 2006. Publisher’s Weekly, 2006

Plot Summary: This title serves the book well, as the story is both saddening and humorous at the same time. Readers will feel sympathy for Alison and her distant, almost always cranky, father – but find their interactions and her perceptions of things to be funny. Her father’s obsession with restoring their house leaves her feeling less important than the furniture. The matter-of-fact way Bechdel writes seems to detach her from any emotion she might be telling in this first person narrative. Readers will feel uneasy when we learn that her father was a homosexual and possible pedophile, as if we accidentally stumbled upon their family’s secrets.

Critical Evaluation: In black and white panels, with a light blue as the only accent color, the illustrations and captions are where most of the humor lie. The comic book style, cartoon like characters are never overly expressive – and depicted with very sad facial expressions and gestures.

Reader's Annotation: A graphic memoir about a teenage girl growing up with a closet homosexual father who is also a teacher and a funeral home director.

Booktalking Ideas: Homosexuality, Secret, Family Dysfunction
Challenge issues if any (how you would defend and materials available in challenge situation: While this story uncovers dark family secrets, it is cloaked in humor which makes it slightly less offensive. The author finds a way to reassure the reader that it is okay to have a dysfunctional family.

Why did you include this book: Teenagers will be able to identify with the hardship, family drama and uneasiness this story and its powerful messages convey.
Quote: “I grew to resent the way my father treated his furniture like children, and his children like furniture.”