#fun home a family tragicomic

[chipcheesesandwich]

As a queer individual and someone who has a complicated relationship with their own father, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic gives me more comfort than anguish from Bechdel's journey. I write this as I finished the book for the first time in three years.

The book itself truly speaks for the medium of graphic novels. Bechdel's way of writing makes you want to grasp the book and sit in awkward ways for the comfort of your arms. The sentences just will not let you put down the book, rather then the graphics. The cartoons are merely substitutes. The words gives space to keep us wondering and waiting for the inevitable conclusion of her father's death, which is the main subject of this book. You just start to mentally prepare yourself as you flip the pages, because even the next square of drawings might lead to a completely different conversation. It is probably the best writing I've seen to describe one writer's "stream of consciousness". Maybe this "stream of consciousness" is why I relate to Bechdel so much.

As I grew in age and started to see the world in my "adult" eyes, I began to reflect on the past more often. I started to compare the relationship I had with my father during my youth to today, which has drastically changed within the last 5 years. Which coincidentally (or resulted by) starting from the year I left for college. "Your world view will change. Your peers will open your eyes." My father encouraged me, as I expressed my disdain towards going to college. I wonder if he had thought that the change in my world view through college would become the foundation of our now awkward, rather frozen relationship.

As I look at my current relationship with my father, and read Bechdel's somewhat unusual relationship with her deceased father, I wonder, will I regret what I have with my father today when he is gone? The ending to Fun Home feels like a conclusion in Bechdel's own words. A way to forgive herself and her father on what could've. An acceptance towards the awkward, unusual, but one of a kind bond that they had. In a sense, I may be yearning for this conclusion, because of how final and so care free it looks. But it also scares me, because Bechdel's conclusion comes from the fact that her father is dead. There is no use, no leeway, no bullshit left to give. Concluded and done, no "to be continued". While I, with my father still working with all limbs, am able to send a text to him with a guaranteed conversation. Something Bechdel will never have. A privilege I have. And it scares me, because what if I never send the text before it's too late. And yet, it scares me with what happens after I do. Will I reach my conclusion that I accept? Or will we just end with what we have, this awkward, frozen relationship?

As my alarm at 10pm goes off, I have to stop this thought for today. I have a work to go to, and responsibilities to meet. The thought I have now bears no urgency to me. But I wonder, will there be a time when 10pm means nothing to me, tomorrow is just a number, and I send that text?

#fun home #book report #review #book review #graphic novel #self reflection #queer community #being queer #queer #lgbtq #father #relationships #parents #fun home a family tragicomic #books and literature #booklover #bookboost

[books-to-add-to-your-tbr]

Title: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

Author: Alison Bechdel

Series or standalone: standalone

Publication year: 2007

Genres: nonfiction, graphic novel, memoir, biography, LGBT+

Blurb: Alison Bechdel charts her fraught relationship with her late father. 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. It was not until college that Alison, who had recently come out as a lesbian, discovered that her father was also gay. A few weeks after this revelation, he was dead, leaving a legacy of mystery for his daughter to resolve.

#fun home #fun home a family tragicomic #alison bechdel #standalone #2007 #nonfiction #graphic novel #memoir #biography #lgbt

[bi4bihankking]

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation Summary:

Wei Wuxian was once one of the most outstanding men of his generation, a talented and clever young cultivator who harnessed martial arts, knowledge, and spirituality into powerful abilities. But when the horrors of war led him to seek a new power through demonic cultivation, the world's respect for his skills turned to fear, and his eventual death was celebrated throughout the land.

Years later, he awakens in the body of an aggrieved young man who sacrifices his soul so that Wei Wuxian can exact revenge on his behalf. Though granted a second life, Wei Wuxian is not free from his first, nor the mysteries that appear before him now. Yet this time, he'll face it all with the righteous and esteemed Lan Wangji at his side, another powerful cultivator whose unwavering dedication and shared memories of their past will help shine a light on the dark truths that surround them.

Fun Home - A Family Tragicomic Summary:

Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high-school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and the family babysitter. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift, graphic, and redemptive.

Interweaving between childhood memories, college life and present day, and through narrative that is equally heartbreaking and fiercely funny, Alison looks back on her complex relationship with her father and finds they had more in common than she ever knew.

#grandmaster of demonic cultivation #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #mo xiang tong xiu #mxtx #fun home #fun home - a family tragicomic #alison bechdel #danmei #lgbt books #lgbt literature #queer books #queer literature #lgbtqia #poll

[sharry-arry-odd]

Was Daedalus really stricken with grief when Icarus fell into the sea? Or just disappointed by the design failure?

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, by Alison Bechdel

#page 12 #fun home #a family tragicomic #alison bechdel #comic #cartoon #graphic novel #domestic violence tw #dv tw #child abuse tw #mental illness #dyke #lesbian #queer #lgbt #quote #quotes #literature #book #booklr #reading #daedalus #icarus #disappointment #failure

[nyxbarb]

My homosexuality remained at that point purely theoretical, an untested hypothesis. But it was a hypothesise so thorough and so convincing I saw no reason not to share it immediately.

— by Alison Bechdel; Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic.

#alison bechdel #fun home #a family tragicomic #quote #quotes #literature

[a-better-beginning]

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

By Alison Bechdel

Date Finished: June 29, 2021

4.5/5

#fun home #alison bechdel #fun home: a family tragicomic #lgbt books #memoir

[duckprintspress]

Let’s Go Lesbians! 32 Books for Lesbian Visibility Day

TODAY! is Lesbian Visibility Day, the first day of Lesbian Visibility Week – April 26, 2024. We are, I’m sure you’re shocked to discover, celebrating with LOTS of lesbian books! 15 people contributed to making this list, all of us sharing our absolute faves, from graphic novels to epic novels, from memoirs to horror fiction, with explicit rep and implied. With this many awesome books to share, we’re prepared to guarantee that everyone who loves wlw lit can find something new to them on this amazing list!

Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin

The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel

Belle of the Ball by Mari Costa

Kiss Number 8 by Colleen AF Venable & Ellen T. Crenshaw

She Wears the Midnight Crown Anthology

Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake

The Scapegracers & The Scratch Daughters by H.A. Clarke

Spinning by Tillie Walden

The Girl from the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag

The Ruin of Angels by Max Gladstone

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

The Red Scholar’s Wake by Aliette de Bodard

Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

She Gets the Girl by Rachael Lippincott & Alyson Derrick

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

Those Who Wait by Haley Cass

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

Into the Bloodred Woods by Martha Brockenbrough

From Here by Luma Mufleh

Alice Isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel

A Memory Called Empire & A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

Female General, Eldest Princess by Please Don’t Laugh

Clear And Muddy Loss of Love by Please Don’t Laugh

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone & Amal El-Mohtar

Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich by Deya Muniz

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin

Can’t get enough books with lesbians? Yeah, us neither – this new list for 2024 is on top of THREE rec lists of titles featuring lesbians that we posted last year.

Lesbian Visibility Week Recs Part 1

Lesbian Visibility Week Recs Part 2

Duck Prints Press Short Stories with Lesbian Characters

You can also view this list (along with all our other wlw faves!) as a shelf on Goodreads!

See a book you want to buy? You can grab it through the Duck Prints Press Bookshop.org affiliate shop!

What are YOUR favorite reads with lesbian characters?

#duck prints press #wlw characters #lesbian characters #queer books #queer fiction #queer non-fiction #lesbian visibility day #lesbian visibility week

[makingqueerhistory]

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

Alison Bechdel

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." It was not until college that Alison, who had recently come out as a lesbian, discovered that her father was also gay. A few weeks after this revelation, he was dead, leaving a legacy of mystery for his daughter to resolve. 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.

(Affiliate link above)

#queer history #queer #lgbt #lgbt books #queer books

[art-that-fucks-you-up-tournament]

SET FIFTEEN - ROUND ONE - MATCH TWO

"minus #37" (2006 - Ryan Armand) / "Panel from Fun Home" (2006 - Alison Bechdel)

MINUS #37: minus was one of those webcomics that stuck in my brain. just an edge of whimsy and surrealism, and yet it's beautifully understandable to be a child's train of thought. and now it only exists on archive.org. (@kaerran)

PANEL FROM FUN HOME: This panel never fails to fuck me up! (@blackholefriends)

("minus" is a webcomic created by Ryan Armand. Each comic strip is painted in watercolor on a 15x20" illustration board. The archive is available here and on web archive.

"Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic" is a 2006 graphic memoir by the American cartoonist Alison Bechdel. The panels are illustrated in black line art with a blue-gray ink wash.)

#art that fucks you up tournament #polls #atfyu polls #id in alt text

[haveyoureadthiscomic-poll]

#fun home #alison bechdel #indie comics #poll

[godzilla-reads]

The March choice for my library’s Graphic Novel Book Club is an Alison Bechdel classic- “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic”.

I can’t wait to reread this one!

#godzilla reads #fun home #alison bechdel #graphic novels #reading #book blog #bookworm #bookish #booklover

[reluctantjoe]

‘After rehearsal, my face hurts from laughing!’ The Ghosts cast on fun, fame and their festive farewell

One of the UK’s most cherished comedies is bowing out for ever. The stars talk about nicking things from the set – and being called ‘outrageous and shameful’ by Piers Morgan

Thanks, I tell the creators of Ghosts sarcastically, for making my daughter cry. The evening before, my family watched the supernatural sitcom’s final episode, and the only dry eyes in the house were mine.

This reaction, I tell Martha Howe-Douglas, Laurence Rickard, Jim Howick and Mathew Baynton over Zoom call, is going to be replicated across Britain. Did you think about how you were going to ruin everybody’s Christmas when you wrote this tearjerker? “Ah, you can but dream,” says Baynton, who plays the Romantic poet Thomas, wistfully.

The Ghosts team implore me not to reveal plot twists from the last episode, but there are some tantalising details I can share without spoiling the viewing experience. First, this is the episode where the final secret about the ghosts is revealed, namely how the Captain died. Second, there is a flash-forward to Alison and Mike in their dotage. But most of all, this is where we learn the fates of everybody, living and dead. I’d like to reveal more about whether Alison and Mike do sell land from the estate to build a golf course, or if any ghost is going to emulate Katy Wix’s character Mary and be sucked off (their words) into the spirit realm, but if I did it’s quite possible the cast would hunt me down and chop off my head. Or maybe they’d just haunt me for ever which, to be honest, doesn’t sound so bad.

The show’s premise – that the ghosts can never leave the grounds of the house – is a tragicomic trope of Britcoms, ie that the protagonists can’t escape their fate. It was Harold’s psychic wound in Steptoe and Son, and now in Ghosts all the spirits are stuck in each others’ company for good as if Button House is a home counties Hotel California. Or if you prefer, the Horrible Histories team have made a funny Uncle Vanya.

Four talking heads nod on their respective Zoom screens.

“I always think Chekhov is funnier than it’s usually done,” says Rickard – who plays two parts, Humphrey the headless and Robin the caveman. “They’re fixed somewhere and also utterly baffled as to why they’re there. So you have these existential crises going on with people who are already dead.” “I was in a production of Vanya once,” says Howick, who plays Scout leader Pat. “It was nothing like this.”

Baynton says: “On the face of it, it’s about ghosts, but it’s really just a metaphor for what it’s like to be a person. You’re born into the world and everyone’s got different opinions about what everything means. To do that in a family sitcom always felt like an amazing trick to me. It kind of is Beckett, but it’s um ... silly Beckett.”

Cast your mind back to April 2019, when the team behind Horrible Histories unveiled a new comedy. Did your careers ever recover from Horrible Histories being endorsed by Michael Gove as a tool for teaching? “I think that was nicely ballasted by James Cleverly or Piers Morgan a few years later around Brexit saying that it was a waste of licence fee,” says Baynton. It was actually Morgan who, with his unerring grasp of the national mood, in 2020 tweeted that the show was “an outrageous, shameful abuse of public money”.

At the outset, Ghosts seemed like a spin-off from Horrible Histories’ Stupid Deaths segment, in which the team recreated a laughable demise (King Harold shot in the eye at Hastings, self-styled gong farmer Richard the Raker drowning in his own poo, Aeschylus killed by an eagle dropping a tortoise on his head). The eponymous Ghosts often died similarly stupidly: Howick’s Scout leader Pat died in an archery accident and wears an arrow through his neck for all eternity; Lolly Adefope’s Georgian noblewoman Kitty was slain by a spider bite from a transatlantically imported pineapple.

In episode one, thirtysomething herberts Alison and Mike move into an ancestral pile that she’s inherited, only to find that it’s haunted. After she falls through a window and cracks her head open, Alison can see the ghosts but Mike can’t – though if he could he would probably put out the lights of the dead Romantic poet who keeps putting the moves on his wife.

Ghosts has been a lovely antidote to our times. For the cast too, making it has been a joy. “We’re very different people,” says Rickard, “but the thing we’ve got in common is a sense of humour. And if you can have one thing in common, that is the best thing, because it’s a light, fun, nice thing you want to keep returning to.

“At the end of rehearsal day, my face hurts from laughing. It’s a really unusual feeling that you’re giving yourself a headache from having a good time, without being horribly drunk.”

A few days later, I interview Charlotte Ritchie and Kiell Smith-Bynoe, who play Alison and Mike. “I think it has real kindness at the heart of it,” says Ritchie. “The core of the show, I think, is that all these people you might label as different are navigating things together.”

That said, Ghosts also manages to tackle some pretty important social issues. The second world war army veteran Captain, whose love for a junior officer dare not speak its name, is fondly imagined. More significant yet is the representation of people of colour. Smith-Bynoe says he was especially delighted when last year’s Christmas special depicted something he’d never seen on TV before: a Black family having Christmas dinner. “I’ve had couples come up to me and, them being an interracial couple, say that it means a lot to them to see that at the forefront. It’s not talked about, just there.”

Ghosts has made the pair famous. “If I wear Alison’s jumpers when I go out, I get recognised,” says Ritchie. Or misrecognised: “I was out the other day and this woman came up to me and said: ‘Liked you in Fleabag.’ So I went with it.” “Why not?” laughs Smith-Bynoe. “I had a thing where somebody was convinced I did a warm-up for Mo Gilligan.” But you never have done? “Of course not! But it was hard to convince them I knew better.”

Both Ritchie and Smith-Bynoe would like to have a word with the writers. They’re not happy the show has come to an end. “I’ve got nothing in January,” she says. “Me neither.” They have a point. They are unemployed in a cost of living crisis while several of the writer-actors on the show have parlayed their fame into work on other lucrative franchises. Baynton can now be seen as Fickelgruber opposite Timothée Chalamet as the eponymous Wonka, while Simon Farnaby co-wrote Wonka, Paddington 2 and the forthcoming Paddington in Peru.

In theory, Ghosts need never end: spirits are eternal, so shouldn’t a sitcom about them be, too? Perhaps the Ghosts team should consider making a spin-off. What would be the Frasier to Ghosts’ Cheers, I ask. “Mick,” says Baynton. He means the ghost who shares the cellar of Button House with other plague victims, each one played by a member of the main cast. “It’d be called Mick with an exclamation mark. And it’d have a live audience. I’d come on and say: ‘Hello everyone! Hiya! I’m home!’ Like Happy Days. Don’t even bother with the makeup, the lights aren’t on.” It sounds terrible, to be fair.

Perhaps we have to accept that Ghosts is dead. Certainly, the cast have plundered the set for memorabilia. Ritchie has snaffled Alison’s jumpers, Smith-Bynoe took Mike’s monocle, Howe-Douglas has Lady Button’s rings and Ben Willbond has taken the Captain’s stick. Rickard proudly holds up Humphrey’s severed head to camera.

All that remains now are the repeats. “I think, more so than drama, people will go back to comedies they love and want to experience them again and find more in them,” says Baynton. “There are plenty of shows that are comfort. Sometimes you put them on so you can have a nap.” He seems to be suggesting that Ghosts is part of that soporific canon. I look at the four screens, each interviewee giggling happily at the thought of Britain not sobbing over the last episode, but dozing through repeats. It may be ending with a Christmas special, but Ghosts will be haunting us for many years to come.

#bbc ghosts #the guardian #martha howe-douglas #martha howe douglas #laurence rickard #larry rickard #mathew baynton #jim howick #mat baynton #charlotte ritchie #kiell smith-bynoe #kiell smith bynoe #6 idiots #six idiots #the six idiots #themthere #them there #rj: interview #rj: bbc ghosts #rj: the guardian #rj: martha howe-douglas #rj: laurence rickard #rj: jim howick #rj: mathew baynton #rj: charlotte ritchie #rj: kiell smith-bynoe #rj: 2023

[aaronstveit]

read in 2024!

it's that time again! i loved doing reading threads in 2022 and 2023 so i will definitely be carrying on the tradition this year. as always, you can find me on goodreads and storygraph, and you're always welcome to message me about books!

Check, Please! Book 1: #Hockey by Ngozi Ukazu* (★★★★★)

Check, Please! Book 2: Sticks and Stones by Ngozi Ukazu* (★★★★★)

Check, Please! Chirpbook by Ngozi Ukazu* (★★★★★)

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (★★★★★)

The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert** (★★★★☆)

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng (★★★★★)

None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell (★★★☆☆)

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert (★★★☆☆)

The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett (★★★★☆)

Dream Work by Mary Oliver (★★★★☆)

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson (★★★★☆)

Cain’s Jawbone by E. Powys Mathers

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang (★★★★★)

You’ve Been Summoned by Lindsey Lamar** (★★☆☆☆)

The Seven Ages by Louise Glück (★★★★☆)

The Last Girl Left by A.M. Strong & Sonya Sargent** (★★★☆☆)

The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang (★★★★★)

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Normal People by Sally Rooney (★★★★★)

How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin** (★★★☆☆)

She Drives Me Crazy by Kelly Quindlen (★★☆☆☆)

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (★★★☆☆)

The Drowning Faith by R.F. Kuang (★★★★★)

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (★★★★★)

The Burning God by R.F. Kuang (★★★★★)

King Lear by William Shakespeare (★★★★☆)

All These Sunken Souls by assorted authors, edited by Circe Moskowitz (★★★★☆)

The Big Four by Agatha Christie (★★★☆☆)

The Avant-Guards, Vol. 1 by Carly Usdin, Noah Hayes (★★★★☆)

That Was Then, This Is Now by S.E. Hinton (★★☆☆☆)

The Avant-Guards, Vol. 2 by Carly Usdin, Noah Hayes (★★★★☆)

Jurassic Park by Michael (★★★☆☆)

The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis (★★★☆☆)

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (★★★★★)

Violeta by Isabel Allende (★★★☆☆)

Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister (★★★★☆)

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (★★★★☆)

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel (★★★★☆)

The Color Purple by Alice Walker (★★★★★)

An asterisk (*) indicates a reread. A double asterisk (**) indicates an ARC.

#personal post #reading thread

[bi4bihankking]

Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor Summary:

Local gay 12 year old gets possessed by the first emperor of China. He is actually canonically gay, he is very relatable for someone who has been a gay 12 year old boy. I just wanted to nominate a middle grade with a canonically gay protagonist because I NEVER thought we'd get anything like that ever.

Fun Home - A Family Tragicomic Summary:

Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high-school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and the family babysitter. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift, graphic, and redemptive.

Interweaving between childhood memories, college life and present day, and through narrative that is equally heartbreaking and fiercely funny, Alison looks back on her complex relationship with her father and finds they had more in common than she ever knew.

#zachary ying and the dragon emperor #zachary ying #xiran jay zhao #fun home #fun home - a family tragicomic #alison bechdel #lgbt books #lgbt literature #queer books #queer literature #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtqia #poll #middle grade #comics #comic books #graphic novel #graphic novels

[sharry-arry-odd]

But how could he admire Joyce's lengthy, libidinal "yes" so fervently and end up saying "no" to his own life? I suppose that a lifetime spent hiding one's erotic truth could have a cumulative renunciatory effect. Sexual shame is in itself a kind of death.

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, by Alison Bechdel

#page 228 #fun home #a family tragicomic #alison bechdel #comic #cartoon #graphic novel #domestic violence tw #dv tw #child abuse tw #mental illness #dyke #lesbian #queer #lgbt #quote #quotes #literature #book #booklr #reading #shame #sexuality #ulysses #james joyce

[blusandbirds]

you are someone i have loved but never known

nikita gill // smoke signals (phoebe bridgers) // may december (2023) (dir. todd haynes) // telephone wire (fun home) // take care: mothers, daughters, and inheriting self-hatred (ella wilson) // fun home: a family tragicomic (alison bechdel) // mother wound healing: why it's crucial for women (bethany webster) // the pain scale (eula biss) // spit of you (sam fender) // never love an anchor (the crane wives)

#web weaving #on parents #may december #fun home #sam fender #phoebe bridgers