Much is amiss at the fun home. The house, like everything within its walls, is a paradox. Everything is the opposite of what it appears to be. Reading this memoir is like untangling a gigantic knot. Everything's tied up tight to near-breaking point. Then we witness the family unraveling...
Alison Bechdel's father is compulsively restoring their crumbling mansion, covering up not only the old walls but his true identity. Her mother, fittingly, is a part-time actress. Her brothers are secondary; it's not really their story. The entire family appears to live alongside each other rather than truly with each other, but it's the riddle of Alison's father and their duplicitous relationship that's at the crux of the plot.
Their only shared love - classic literature - provides a slight buffer for a tumultuous father/daughter relationship; however, the more parallels that are drawn between the books' characters, the more the familial duo appear to be mirroring the literature that means so much to each of them. They communicate in opposites but write in truth.
Her father hides his true identity while Alison attempts to share hers. He lives somewhat vicariously through her, yet can't quite connect.
And then it's too late.
This memoir perfectly reveals why it's impossible to live a contented, peaceful life when you're deceiving not only yourself but those around you. If only they'd stopped communicating in riddles/if only the patched-up house didn't represent the father's psyche/if only fate or destiny or whatever it is hadn't brought her father back to small-town life/if only a life and then an entire family hadn't been built on secrets and lies/if only they'd begun with the truth/if only/if only/if only...
But, oh, that final panel hit my heart.
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