'Remembrance of Things Past' by Marcel Proustīechdel’s father began reading Proust’s master work Remembrance of Things Past the year before he died, and Bechdel makes frequent references to Proust throughout the graphic memoir.

Salinger’s preeminent novel remains one of the best English-language works of fiction of all time, a symbol of teen angst, individuality, and the hardship of growing up. The sensation of intimacy was novel.” Published in 1951, J.D. Bechdel writes, “Sometimes it was as if Dad and I were the only ones in the room. SalingerĪlison’s father, who is also her high school English teacher, assigns The Catcher in the Rye to his class. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter to join our Fun Home Book Club, where we will dig into some of the books on this list. To celebrate Fun Home-a seminal LGBT book that celebrates the acts of writing and reading-we’ve put together a reading list comprised of some of the most prominent and important books mentioned in the graphic memoir. In the graphic memoir especially, books are a means for Bechdel to communicate with her intellectual parents, particularly her father-and then an invaluable resource as she comes to terms with her sexuality. A book from her dad offers a hint that he might know she’s a lesbian a bookstore is where she realizes she’s gay.

Throughout Fun Home, onstage through Apat the Ahmanson Theatre, books serve as markers of different stages in graphic memoir author Alison Bechdel’s life. Meet the Education & Community Partnerships Team.When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift, graphic, and redemptive.

And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned 'fun home, ' as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books.

Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian house, 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 male students and a family babysitter. It's a father-daughter tale perfectly suited to the graphic memoir form. Summary: This book takes its place alongside the unnerving, memorable, darkly funny family memoirs of Augusten Burroughs and Mary Karr.

The fun home