Thursday, April 16, 2015

Fun Home



The cover for Fun Home


Literary criticism can often seem boring, irrelevant, or both. Half the time, the reader is left to wonder if the critic hasn’t simply made everything up, overanalyzing trivia and inventing theories that the author of a work never intended. This is not mere self-flagellation, but a key aspect of this month’s selection, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel, an autobiographical graphic novel from 2006. The daughter of a funeral director and high school English teacher, Alison has to grapple with the above sentiments in the most existential terms possible.