Contradiction and ignorance lie at the heart of this story. Bechdel's childhood is portrayed as the product of a cold and loveless marriage, where the children are treated more as school pupils and free labour than beloved offspring. Yet Bechdel and her siblings for the most part come across as happy and content with their lives - at least until the confusion of puberty and sex rears its head in the later years.
The narrative revolves around the death of Bechdel's father - hit by a truck whilst crossing the road from a house he was renovating - which she adamantly maintains throughout the story was an un-confessed suicide driven by his secret homosexuality (or bisexuality - he never articulates any specifics) in their local small-town community. Bechdel continuously questions whether coincidences are in fact omens or whether she find patterns in her father's struggles and her own coming out - yet rarely seriously considers her father's death to be a genuine accident. This attempt to place meaning on events and people within her life is a constant thread throughout the book.
Perhaps we should shy away from trying to analyse her thoughts too much - in several scenes she is dismissive of her English Literature teachers and fellow students attempting to impose meaning on classic books that are of their own invention, never considering that the author's works could be taken at face value.
The constant use of a narrative voice, rather than relying on world balloons, emphasises the reminiscence of autobiography and critical analysis of her relationships. This is compounded by the inclusion of excerpts from her childhood diary at points (including them as drawn reproductions of the original entries), which makes for an odd echo chamber as she ponders now her pondering of then.Her narrative choice to reveal the death of her father at the beginning of the story certainly helps the introspective nature of the story, rather than leaving it as a cheap shock to conclude the comic. Indeed, the story itself if more about the search for answers than a straightforward autobiographical tale. Chronologically things jump from Bechdel's young childhood, to her coming out at college, back again, and all points in between. In doing so it feels like a much more realistic recollection of her life - when we think back to our childhood there are moments that jump from our memory, but rarely are these recalled is strictly chronological order. It is a technique that can come off as trying to be clever, but in Fun Home it feels natural and essential to the flow of the story.
Artistically Bechdel's thin wiry line drawings recall illustrations from children's story books, adding to the feel of the comic as a memory from her (and our) youth. Her lack of depth and shade to most panels forces the characters to the foreground and makes you pay attention to every panel - as if she is determined not be analysed for subtle nods and winks, bur rather present heart-on-sleeve honesty (which she laments the absence of in her family home). Her style is more akin to a newspaper comic strip (Peanuts springs to mind, especially with her character's hair) and so feels somewhat out of place in a longer form story such as the graphic novel. This contributes to the alienation Bechdel experiences throughout her childhood and college life.Having never personally experienced the questions or secrets of my sexuality that Bechdel and her father did I'm not best placed to say whether Fun Home will find its way into the pantheon of reassuring and educating gay literature that she finds comfort in whist at college. What I can say however is that Fun Home is a touching, complex, tale of personal secrets and awkward family relationships that enthrals, and at times saddens, the reader whilst disarming them with simple but charming and direct artwork.
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