"Fun Home" by Allison Bechdel

There’s just something so beautiful when it comes to Bechdel’s writing. Along with her illustrations, filled with a slight tint of baby blue color. It makes you feel some type of nostalgia of your own. I have to say, the moment I saw the amount of narration on each page, I was not so excited. Even so, I was proved wrong and Bechdel was able to hook me into the story from the very beginning. Through her many uses of allusions, she is able to use them as parallels between the relationship she has with her father. Even if you can’t relate to the indifferences between them, the reader is interested in knowing why Bruce acts in such a way. Why is he so strict? Why does he expect so much from a perfect house set up? For his daughter to have her hair done? To wear a dress for once? It’s after we learn more about Allison and her sexuality that we can see more clearly why their personalities clash so much. In Allison’s own words,

“I’d been upstaged, demoted from protagonist in my own drama to comic relief in my parent’s tragedy”

Allison finds a way to make this memoir stand out through the addition of allusion and a nonlinear narrative. But rather a narrative that slowly helps the reader to understand moments in her and Bruce’s life, up until the day of his passing. Bechdel makes a story between connecting with a parental figure and finding your own sexuality and hoping your family dynamic will not be affected because of such a brave act.

As someone who’s trying to understand her own sexual orientation, I can understand how aggravating it can be to fear your family will not accept you any longer after such news. But it is Allison’s confidence and ability to move forward that makes the story inspirational and worth-reading. It’s her progressive comfort with her own sexuality through literary sources and her own college experiences that lead to a good model to follow. No wonder this book is a prolific example of LGBTQ literature. It can reassure its reader how “hey! It’s going to be okay.” How being oneself is better than to hide who you really are. Which is why when we learn about her father’s secret that we feel empathy towards him. 

Like any memoir. Like any story, really, there’s a message within these pages. Here, Allison tells her and her father’s stories and hopes for you to learn from both in order to be careful when making your own decision.