Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Alison Bechdel
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic is Bechdel’s coming-of-age memoir in graphic novel form. It focuses on her childhood, especially her relationship with her gay, closeted father, Bruce. In Fun Home, Bechdel explores her childhood, sexuality, and self-identity.
Major thematic elements: sexuality, identity, death
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IB Literature and IB Language and Literature Connections
Place of publication: United States
Language: English
Era: 21st century
Genre: Nonfiction, memoir
Author: Female
Readers, writers and texts | Time and space | Intertextuality: Connecting texts
Identity | Culture | Creativity | Communication
Perspective | Transformation | Representation
Full text, basic summaries, and overviews
Read Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic Graphic Novel
This website has an online version of the text. Click the “Start Reading” button or chose a chapter listed below.
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Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic | Study Guide | Course Hero
Course Hero has context, characters, plot and chapter summaries, quotes, themes, symbols, and more.
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Fun Home | Wikipedia
Wikipedia has a very nice overview of the text, including content on analysis, publication and reception, challenges, and adaptations.
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Fun Home Study Guide | LitCharts
Much of this page is locked behind a paywall, but what is available is good, especially in terms of general information about the text.
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Dykes to Watch Out For | Alison Bechdel Official Website
Bechdel has a lot of content on her page. Particularly fun to read is the FAQ section under “About” — Bechdel’s voice comes through nicely in her responses to readers’ questions.
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Case Study: Fun Home
This page gives a good overview of the text and the challenges it has faced when Fun Home has appeared on high school and collegiate reading lists.
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A Reference Guide to Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home | Scalar.USC.edu
Fun Home is full of references to other literary works. This website has information on all of them, as well as a timeline that shows the publication dates of the texts Bechdel references. This site would be great for students studying Fun Home who aren’t familiar with all of the textual allusions Bechdel includes.
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About the author
Alison Bechdel: Cartoonist and Graphic Memoirist | Class of 2014 | MacArthur Fellows Program
This biography and video were produced after Bechdel became a MacArther Foundation grant.
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Drawn from Life: The World of Alison Bechdel | The New Yorker | Judith Thurman | April 16, 2012
This lengthy profile covers a wide range of topics in Bechdel’s life.
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Lesbian Cartoonist Alison Bechdel Countered Dad’s Secrecy By Being Out And Open | NPR | Fresh Air | August 2015
This interview is a 43-minute listen; highlights from the interview are also provided.
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In Conversation: Alison Bechdel - In her latest book, the graphic memoirist examines her relationship to exercise and, in turn, herself. | Vulture | E. Alex Jung | May 2021
This interview has an added perk: text underlined in blue can be hovered over and a box will appear with additional information—like on-demand footnotes.
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Alison Bechdel on ‘Fun Home’’s Tony-Award Triumph | Rolling Stone | Sean T. Collins | June 18, 2015
As the title suggests, this interview focuses more on the process of adapting Fun Home for a Broadway stage. Note that you will need to manually click through to the next page to continue to read the interview. To watch an overview of the musical, click here.
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Alison Bechdel | Wikipedia
Classic Wikipedia overview with sections on Bechdel’s early life, career, graphic novels, personal life, awards and more.
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Articles, essays, and videos about Fun Home
The Bittersweet History of Fun Home on Broadway | YouTube | Wait in the Wings | 49:35
A great introduction to Fun Home, this video has seventeen chapters, some of which are solely focused on the musical, some of which are solid background information. If you’re looking to skip the Broadway chapters, chapters Caption, Beech Creek, The Graphic Novel, A Father & A Daughter, and Trouble are the most closely connected to the text.
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The Things They Buried | The New York Times | Book review by Sean Wilsey | June 18, 2006
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Fun Home: Additional Resources | Menlo School Library
This page is packed with links to additional resources for someone learning about Fun Home. Sections include “Censorship,” “Trigger Warnings,” “Book Reviews,” “Ethics of the ‘Closet,’” “Meaningful Conversations,” “Pornography/Obscenity,” and “Chastity/Modesty.”
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Are Graphic Novels…Novels? | It’s Lit | YouTube | Storied | 10:16
This approachable and sassy video is a great introduction to graphic novels in general—their history, connection to comic books, and impact.
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Landing on the Patio: Landscape Ecology and Architecture of Identity in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic | Jenna Goldsmith, University of Kentucky | 2014
This article connects the physical spaces in Fun Home to characters’ identity and explores the way setting can reveal deeper meaning.
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Queering the Family, Reclaiming the Father: Proustian Evocations in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home | Olga Michael, University of Central Lancashire
”This essay argues that Alison Bechdel’s Proustian allusions in Fun Home structure queer gender and sexuality performances that allow Alison to reclaim and reunite with her distant and ultimately lost father.”
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Intertextuality in Alison Bechdel’s Fun House | The Scarlet Review | Caitlin Walker
This essay explores the literary allusions in Fun House and the way Bechdel links her journey to characters in these alluded-to texts.
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Both Graphic and Memoir: The Interaction of Image and Narrative in Fun Home | Eric Haverkamp
”This paper examines…how the format and history of the graphic novel impact the symbolism and interpretation of Bechdel’s memoir.”
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Fun Home - Facing the Past Through Fiction | YouTube | Matt Draper | Jan 2018 | 11:11d
This video is a great overview of the text, its themes, Bechdel’s personal history, and the literary allusions Bechdel uses in Fun Home.
Watch here
Fun Home creator Alison Bechdel on turning a tragic childhood into a hit musical | The Guardian | Rachel Cooke | November 2017
This lengthy article covers a wide-range of topics related to Bechdel’s work, including her comic strip and the American political landscape.
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Duke’s Fun Home controversy, explained | Vox | Alex Abad-Santos and Libby Nelson | August 2015
Duke University, like many schools, received pushback after recommending Fun Home to students. This article gives a good overview to the controversy, and controversies in other communities.
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Lesson plans and other teaching resources
Approaches to Teaching Bechdel’s Fun Home | Edited by Judith Kegan Gardiner | Text Preview
This PDF preview includes a time line for Bechdel and the essay “The Instructor’s Library” by Gardiner.
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Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel - A Hope in the Box Curriculum Guide | Unit Plan
This unit plan comes with chapter-specific discussion questions and writing prompts and links to supplemental materials.
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Queer Teacher/Teaching Queer | Teacher Blog | Posts 10, 11, and 12
Smith’s three posts on teaching Fun Home include his rationale for teaching it, prep work, lesson plan, writing prompts, and student response samples. Post 10: Fun Home | Post 11: Fun Home Writing Prompts | Post 12: Student Writing About Fun Home
Teaching Literature Portfolio | A Lesson Plan - Fun Home by Alison Bechdel | Brian Charest | April 2011
Charest provides guiding questions, a lesson plan, and an assignment for individual work.
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Fun Home Response | Middlebury | Cassarino | March 1, 2019
This page includes a writing/analysis prompt and student posts of their work.
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Fun Home Essay Topics & Writing Assignments | Book Rags
Full disclosure: most of the pages on Book Rags for Fun Home are locked behind a paywall. But three essay prompts are available, as is a sampling of each of the other resources, accessible via the left toolbar.
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Shopping List
Texts and other resources you may find helpful.
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Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Paperback on Amazon.com
The Secret to Superhuman Strength
Hardcover on Amazon.com
Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama
Hardcover on Amazon.com
The Essential Dykes To Watch Out For
Hardcover on Amazon.com
Approaches to Teaching Bechdel's Fun Home
Hardcover on Amazon.com
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
Paperback on Amazon.com
Fun Home: Broadway Script
Paperback on Amazon.com
Fun Home - A New Broadway Musical
Audio CD (NOT DVD) on Amazon.comBack to Browse by Title | Browse by Author
