Alison Bechdel

Alison Bechdel is both narrator, character, and writer of her own graphic memoir, “Fun House: A Family Tragicomedy.” In the memoir, Bechdel ranges between a child and a 19-year-old woman, though she frequently writes asides in the present day and age in which she explains or reflects on past events. Bechdel’s memoir is an account of her coming of age as a lesbian, her father’s suppressed homosexuality, and the father-daughter relationship Bechdel has with her father during his lifetime, which is strained and cold for most of her life. When she is younger, Bechdel considers her father to be unmanly, but only later learns that this is because his femininity is reflective of his homosexuality.

Bechdel herself comes out when she is 19, having discovered through reading that she is a lesbian. She struggles with opposition to her homosexuality, but she manages to more confidently...