Summary

In the summer of 1976, Bechdel remembers going to New York with her father for the Bicentennial when she was 15. It is during this visit that Bechdel recalls seeing cosmeticized masculinity, and examples of gayness everywhere. She recounts going to see the show “A Chorus Line”, and considering all the possibilities of homosexuality. While wandering around alone, Bechdel’s younger brother John was nearly picked up by a gay man. Only Christopher dashing back to the apartment where Bechdel and her family were staying saved him. Bechdel also remembers how her father went out each night to hit the gay scene. She wonders in the present if she would have lost him to AIDS years later if he hadn’t committed suicide. Bechdel considers the narrative of her own life to be like that of her father’s – one of sexual...