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The author draws parallels between her journey and ultimate escape from the small town traditions and thinking, and her father's growing, somewhat voluntary entrapment and suffocation therein. The father had some ingrained notion of staying married to a woman, carrying on the family's small town funeral home business, living in his ancestral home town though he also loved visiting the gay neighborhoods of New York City on certain weekends.
If you enjoyed this book, I recommend the author's Dykes to Watch Out For series, especially the later volumes - it's about more than lesbians, but about humanity and the importance of individuality and being true to ourselves. He was caught between half hearted adherence to social norms and his internal deep seated insuppresible yearnings.This memoir is not so much about sexual orientation, but about peoples' true natures, and how only so much of it can be healthily moulded into normal forms, and much of it can be suppressed, but at high mental cost.
An elegantly ordered, deeply thought out memoir of a father by his daughter. Yet he also tried to impose his vision of femininity on her - e.g., forcing a barrette on the hair of his tomboyish resentful daughter.
The author's father - a high school English teacher in a small town, a part time funeral home embalmer, a home body, a Do It Yourself home improver, outwardly so utterly ordinary - had a secret sexual life.
The father taught the author to be an independent thinker and love literature and history and gave her her intellectual and spiritual wings.
I was blown away and am telling all my friends, 'you must read/view this book.' I've never read a graphic novel before so wasn't sure what to expect.
It was entertaining, informative and fun. I loved how she put the story together.
And the graphics are fun. It is a short read but well worth the price.
I didn't expect much from this book, cartoons and all. She gives her feelings and thoughts about being raised by a man who bordered obsessive and could not, or would not, control his predilection for young men.
If you enjoy "Dykes to watch out for".you will love this. But what I got was a pleasant surprise.
Our writer begins at a very early age in her life and takes us through a journey of her own sexual awakening and discovery, to the discovery that her father was gay and often with men, even while married to her mother.
The words she uses are effective in moving the story along emotionally and temporally but without the drawings, the story is half told. If any graphic novel could have satisfied me, Fun Home would have - and didn't. Ultimately, this read was pleasant but frustrating. She is honest about herself and the conflicts between childhood memory and adult perspective and understanding. I guess I'll know the answer to that question when my well-read but decidedly non-urban, mostly straight book group discusses this next week. I almost feel as though this should be reviewed as a film instead of a book.
It isn't Bechdel's fault. This is a good graphic memoir I probably would have loved if it were not in the graphic novel format. Alison Bechdel is a skilled storyteller and graphic artist. Maybe that is a weakness of the book: is the audience too narrow.
I didn't need to know any more about the significance of Christopher Street or the post-Stonewall atmosphere of NYC. I'm from New York and spent a lot of time in the Village during that period. I suspect I am just the wrong audience for graphic novels. She's written a good graphic memoir that is, for me, lacking the emotional depth of a good memoir
And when they make the movie, I'll buy a ticket. I like her honesty. If I run across any essays or other writings by Alison Bechdel, I will be happy to read them. I don't know if she's a skilled writer because she relies on her drawings to evoke the Victorian monstrosity of her childhood home and the girly dresses she abhorred.
(They like Persepolis, but I had the same misgivings with that book). One example of when I would have preferred a more traditional narrative was description of Greenwich Village at that point in history. Bechdel does a good job depicting a family caught up in the social upheavals of the 60s and 70s. The way literature and popular culture are woven into the story feels natural and essential.
Well written and well illustrated.plus, a quick read. Didn't think I would like the graphic novel genre, but I really did.
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