A Sight to Remember: Bechdel’s Humorous and Heartbreaking *Fun Home* Proves That Comics are an Ideal Memoir Format

By: Madeleine Wack

Trigger Warning: Discussion of Suicide

By: Madeleine Wack

In 2006, Alison Bechdel published her graphic-novel memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic,to massive success. This memoir focuses on her childhood and her early college years directly before and after her father’s death (and assumed suicide) and centers primarily around her relationship with her father as well as exploring sexuality, gender identity/expression, marriage, mental health, death, and the importance of literature to identity.

Bechdel had an intensely complicated relationship with her father and, consequently, with her memories of him after his passing. In fact, she states specifically that the only way she felt she could really understand her parents was by fictionalizing them. One of the key points of this complexity, though certainly not the only one, is that Bechdel, who identifies as a lesbian, learned after coming out to her parents that her father was a closeted gay man. Soon after, her father was struck by a truck in what she and her family believe was an intentional act of suicide.

“Fun Home” refers to what, as children, Bechdel and her brothers called the funeral home which their father directed. This seeming paradox of lightness and pain pervades the story both in its setups and its illustrations.

Though the memoir begins with Bechdel as a child, Fun Home is not remotely chronological. It is organized by ideas rather than time and will often jump from one time period to another within a few pages (or even one page). Bechdel never attempts to tell a story of her life but rather of her memories. This is strongly aided by the graphic novel format, as, in general, our memories take on a visual form and the imagey prevented any confusion as to what period in Bechdel’s life she was describing.

The structure of Fun Home consists mainly of illustrated panels with speech bubbles within them and Bechdel’s own narration placed above these panels or in self-contained boxes within them. While the imagery is firmly grounded in whatever time she is talking about the tone of the writing is entirely past tense. she allows what the person she is now and the knowledge that she has to color, quite literally through the specific use of the color blue in otherwise black-and-white frames, her memories.

Overall, the illustrations in Fun Home are fairly simple with strong lines. They feel highly intentional, seemingly meant to convey the internalities of her family rather than the extrernal appearances.The only time Bechdel uses realistic drawing styles are for photographs and paintings.

This resonates strongly with the way that Bechdel describes her diary entries going from fact to uncertain fact to certain opinions over time.

In terms of comics as a form of truth-telling, the style of Fun Home feels more realistic to the way we process memories than any other form of literature could.

Through the simple imagery and specific coloration, Bechdel conveys that her memories are exactly that, memories. She is also able to convey the difference between appearance and reality and identity and presentation which was such a massive part of her growing up.

Furthermore, when Bechdel briefly steps out of her usual form by having several panels which contained words alone she is able to make the statements contained in these panels stand out as her truths.

Trusting the truth-telling power of comics is, at heart, no different than trusting the truth-telling power of any other form of literature.