The 2006 graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel challenged for LGBTQ themes is Fun Home.
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic examines Bechdel’s childhood and young adulthood in rural Pennsylvania, her discovery of her lesbian identity, and her difficult relationship with her father, Bruce. Bruce was a funeral-home director, English teacher, and meticulous restorer of the family’s Victorian house, giving the memoir its title and its blend of dark humor and family history.
The memoir connects Bechdel’s coming out with her father’s hidden life and eventual death, which occurred shortly after she told her parents she was a lesbian. Bechdel uses literary references, including James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Marcel Proust, to interpret memory and family relationships.
Because it combines LGBTQ subject matter with illustrations depicting sexuality, death, suicide, and emotional abuse, Fun Home has faced challenges and removals from schools and libraries. In 2022, a Missouri school board voted to remove it despite a review committee’s recommendation to retain it. Blankets, Persepolis, and Maus are also graphic memoirs, but they were not written by Bechdel.