An American cartoonist originally best known for the long-running comic strip "Dykes To Watch Out For", in 2006 she became a best-selling and critically acclaimed author with her graphic memoir "Fun Home".
"Fun Home" is an autobiographical
"tragicomic" chronicling her childhood and the years before and after
her father's death. "Fun Home" has received more widespread mainstream attention
than Bechdel's earlier work, with reviews in Entertainment Weekly, People
and several features in The New York Times. "Fun Home" spent
two weeks on the New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction bestseller list. The
graphic memoir told the story of her small-town Pennsylvania childhood, which
was dominated by her often tyrannical father. An obsessive home restorer and
closeted homosexual, he died a possible suicide just as his college-age
daughter was coming out as a lesbian. Six years after "Fun Home",
Bechdel has published a second memoir in comics form, Are You My Mother?",
but it’s more than simply the maternal counterpart to its predecessor.
Thrillingly discursive, it’s framed by the artist’s struggle to create
"Fun Home" and broker her mother’s acceptance of its public unearthing
of family secrets. Bechdel recounts episodes from her romantic relationships,
her beginnings as the cartoonist of the long running "Dykes to Watch Out
For" strip, and her struggles, through fruitful years of psychotherapy, to
come to terms with her sometimes difficult relationship with her mother.
by Małgorzata Olsza
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