After hearing about this graphic novel memoir for years, I finally got around to reading it. The author grew up with distant parents and two younger brothers in rural Pennsylvania. Her father was an English teacher and part-time mortician at his family's business. ("Fun home" is short for "funeral home".) Alison candidly draws and discusses her relationship with her father, a cold, tyrannical, and exacting man with a huge secret . . . he is gay. He dies soon after this is revealed to his college-aged daughter, who herself has just come out as a lesbian. Because of this great revelation and his closely followed death, Alison goes back through her childhood and analyzes her father's behavior, obsessions, and interactions. In my opinion, this book deserves all the of praise it has received because it conveys so much so smartly and so efficiently. The drawings are economical with few colors yet convey everyone's emotions, particularly confusion, very well. The book has been made into a musical that won 5 Tony Awards earlier this year. 232 pages.
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