2006 book 74

alison bechdel's fun home
i don't usually count graphic novels toward my book totals--i mean, how can you accurately calculate length?--but i think this one is long enough (and garnering enough critical attention) to merit inclusion. (now i feel bad for not including scott pilgrim 3, but its adorable small size seems to preclude it from meeting the length requirement.)

anyway, this is sort of bechdel's tour du force--she's been writing the dykes to watch out for strip since the 80s, and that's always been entertaining and pointed, but this book is really powerful. her drawings here are a lot more detailed, for one thing, although some of the characters do bear more than a passing resemblance to various dtwof cast members. the settings are lush and beautiful, which is unsurprising considering that one of her father's pastimes was restoring their victorian house. the story here is moving and powerful as well; this memoir of her family centers on bechdel's own coming out soon before her father's possible suicide and the revelation that he had many affairs with men throughout his life. the complicated family relationships are vividly drawn (literally and figuratively) and bechdel's own recollections of the whole coming-of-age thing are really poignant (bechdel is honestly the first person i've ever seen write about how boobs hurt when they start growing).

of course, like everything i read lately, this has evoked some nostalgia in me--bechdel's family lived in small-town central pennsylvania, not far from state college (in fact, i am fairly sure that after her father's death, her mother moved to the bellefonte area--when svoboda's still existed, they awlays had signed copies of bechdel's books). there is plenty here on central pennsylvania geography and even the occasional psu shirt on a minor character. aw, yay nittany lions.

anyway, i highly recommend this--the family dynamics and the wistfulness in the narration are extremely compelling.

___

meanwhile, i've been trying like crazy to a) create a 30-second snippet of a song i love to be my ringtone, and b) get it onto my new phone . . . and failing miserably at both! how disappointing--usually i'm good at that sort of thing.