ewee (10/26): Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, by Alison Bechdel

Without (much) boasting, I can say that I've read everything that Alison Bechdel has published. I might even own all of her books, but I'm not sure. I've been reading her since almost the beginning -- I came out in the 90's, and immediately consumed every comic of hers I could find. I'm sure if I'd seen her comics before I came out, I'd've read them just as voraciously (perhaps more voraciously). In fact, I was fairly certain that she was spying on the funky veggie all womyn co-op I lived in just after college (Cherry Street co-op in fabulous Northampton, MA) -- it was all too familiar. As her characters changed and aged, so did my circle of friends.

Forgive the extra-babbly digression, but reading Fun Home was like getting to spend quality time with an old college friend I'd lost touch with completely. [Yes, K, there are pictures, but it is Entertainment Weekly's *and* Time Magazine's number ONE (non-fiction, for EW) book of 2006. So there!]

This is not *just* a graphic novel. It pays homage to the literary canon -- from Proust to James Joyce to other dead white men (I only read the Cliff Notes...). And all the while, it weaves together a bizarre and compelling story of obsession, family and coming out. Bechdel's memoir is one of the best things I've read in a long time. Sadly, it's been removed from at least one public library (along with Blankets, by Craig Thompson), and will have to endure a few rounds of homophobia before the dust settles. But like all good literature, it speaks the truth eloquently and like the great comics of our times, Bechdel uses the medium to provide more than words alone can.

Highly recommended, but definitely check your homophobia at the door, as it's a fairly queer narrative (in more ways than one). But as Time Magazine's blurb puts it:

The unlikeliest literary success of 2006 is a stunning memoir about a girl growing up in a small town with her cryptic, perfectionist dad and slowly realizing that a) she is gay and b) he is too. Oh, and it's a comic book: Bechdel's breathtakingly smart commentary duets with eloquent line drawings. Forget genre and sexual orientation: this is a masterpiece about two people who live in the same house but different worlds, and their mysterious debts to each other.