Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

Truthfully, I was going to look for the musical first but when I saw this in the library I figured I should see the source material, and wow. I didn’t have any idea what it was about other than it was an memoir of family dysfunction so it really threw me for a loop to read what it was about.

In black and white, Bechdel begins with her father’s death-suicide. It’s unclear but Alison suspects that her father stepped in front of the truck on purpose. From there she traces her childhood with her at times physically abusive and emotionally volatile father, the estranged marriage of her parents and how she felt that she could never fulfill the role of a good child for them.

That is partly due to the fact that as she grows older, she realizes she is a lesbian and becomes more consumed with exploring that culture. An epiphany that leads to a break with her mother and a new perspective of her father as her mom spills that her dad is gay and has been cheating on her with multiple young men.

The memoir is thoughtful, taking a complicated look into a deeply unhappy closeted man. It respects him enough to acknowledge that it must have been tough, but Alison also lets out her anger at him for what he did to the family, how tough he was to deal with, as well as the grief and the questioning of what could have been. It’s nuanced, humorous and thoughtful with plenty of literary allusions sprinkled in to give it a philosphical bent.

The sequel, , fittingly about her relationship with her mother was harder to get through as it focused almost more on literary allusions, and dissecting psychology than the mother’s story.

And Now I Spill the Family Secrets by Margaret Kimball

Another black and white memoir, which delves into motherhood and mental illness. After Margaret finds out about her mother’s failed suicide on mother’s day years ago, she decides to piece together the history of her family starting with her great grandmother’s postpartum depression, the mania that afflicts seveal members and the schizophrenia that is beginning to set in for her brother.

It takes a look at how sheltered yet observant children can be in this hectic time of estrangement, isolation and bouncing around the house. How it affects families from her parents divorce to her own uncertainty of how to interact with her mother after she returned from the institution, and even having to care of her in her mania episodes.

Like above, Kimball is doing this as a means of closure and looking for a broader story of her past and what it means for her now going forward and helping her brother.

Something New: Tales from a Makeshift Bride by Lucy Knisley

This was much lighter memoir, less about family but more about one of the biggest family events- a wedding. Humorous and in full color, Lucy illustrates popular wedding traditions, and superstitions, alongside her own story of engagement, romance and one wedding crisis after another-the dress, the list, the DIY crafts, the horror.

She also emphasizes the stress we put upon ourselves in embedding our identities into the weddings, the personalization and brings up insightful comments on their importance to people, and what they represent in celebrating the union of two people and their hopes for the future. Very fun.