Book review of Alison Bechdel's 'Fun Home'

‘Fun home’ is an autobiographical ‘tragicomic’. Comics are multimodal texts – they create their meaning through images as well as words. Traditionally, comics are light weight, entertaining and fictional but they can be a powerful medium to express feelings and explore serious issues. Bechdel’s graphic autobiography explores the tensions that occur in her family life including her father’s gay affairs and his suicide. In ‘Fun Home’ Alison Bechdel tells her childhood story using a form similar to a graphic novel. However, unlike most graphic novels which are about super heroes or fantasy worlds, her work concerns a funeral home or a ‘fun home’. The title of the book is ironic considering that the most amount of ‘fun’ that Alison Bechdel appears to have is when they spot a snake on a camping trip which even then is depressingly related to her father’s suicide.
A writer’s tool is language and this is usually used to create mood, movement and narrative structure. However in graphic novels it is the images that help to create these factors. Colour helps to create the mood that is suitable for a ‘tragicomic’ so in this case it is blacks, whites and greys. This use of colour, or lack of, reflects the morbid tone of the story and it works to inject this gloomy and depressing tone into the reader. The facial expressions of the characters are a further method used by Bechdel to create mood and movement. The parents especially are continuously portrayed as emotionless and negative looking.
For me, the images brought the story to life because there was no need to form a mental picture of the characters and the setting, it was already done for me, bringing me closer to the author’s experiences.