Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

EAN:9780618871711 Label:Mariner Books Author:Alison Bechdel Binding:Paperback

This is a good graphic memoir I probably would have loved if it were not in the graphic novel format good memoir in the wrong format for this reader. Alison Bechdel is a skilled storyteller and graphic artist2009-03-07 Rating 3. 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. The words she uses are effective in moving the story along emotionally and temporally but without the drawings, the story is half told. I almost feel as though this should be reviewed as a film instead of a book. Bechdel does a good job depicting a family caught up in the social upheavals of the 60s and 70s. She is honest about herself and the conflicts between childhood memory and adult perspective and understanding. I like her honesty. The way literature and popular culture are woven into the story feels natural and essential. One example of when I would have preferred a more traditional narrative was description of Greenwich Village at that point in history. I'm from New York and spent a lot of time in the Village during that period. I didn't need to know any more about the significance of Christopher Street or the post-Stonewall atmosphere of NYC. Maybe that is a weakness of the book: is the audience too narrow? 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. (They like Persepolis, but I had the same misgivings with that book. ) I suspect I am just the wrong audience for graphic novels. If I run across any essays or other writings by Alison Bechdel, I will be happy to read them. And when they make the movie, I'll buy a ticket. Ultimately, this read was pleasant but frustrating. If any graphic novel could have satisfied me, Fun Home would have - and didn't. It isn't Bechdel's fault. She's written a good graphic memoir that is, for me, lacking the emotional depth of a good memoir Didn't think I would like the graphic novel genre, but I really did Suprisingly good. Well written and well illustrated2009-02-06 Rating 5. . plus, a quick read. I didn't even know what a graphic novel was until recently, and only read this at the urging of a good friend and avid reader who is very selective in the books she recommends If all graphic novels are this good, I'm sold!. I had this idea that graphic novels would be comics for adults and in some way "dumb down" reading2009-02-05 Rating 5. Not so with Fun Home. The combination of great writing and well-done illustrations just increases the story-telling effect. Bechdel is able to show important things in the drawings that might have been hard to describe in the writing. . especially at times when the writing is from a younger child's viewpoint. The illustrations show a lot of what is going on. . that a child wouldn't recognize. Bechdel is laugh-out-loud funny at times, makes up interesting words that truly should be added to the dictionary, and tells a compelling story. I'm recommending this book to all my family and friends. If all graphic novels are this good, I'm sold on the genre. (but I expect it will be like any books. . takes great writing to make them work. ) and I agree that it's probably best NOT to know the story line ahead of time. . makes for much more interesting and sudden twists. Kathie Hightower, coauthor of Help! I'm a Military Spouse -- I Get a Life Too! 2d Edition. This is the first comic book I've read in, oh, 50 years Astounding!!. It's brilliant! 2009-02-05 Rating 5. I needed this book for class Thanks!. It came quickly and was in the condition that I was promised2009-01-29 Rating 5. Thanks!. In this groundbreaking, bestselling graphic memoir, Alison Bechdel charts her fraught relationship with her late father In her hands, personal history becomes a work of amazing subtlety and power, written with controlled force and enlivened with humor, rich literary allusion, and heartbreaking detail. Distant and exacting, Bruce Bechdel was an English teacher and director of the town funeral home, which Alison and her family referred to as the "Fun Home