Crew Cut Desires

                Fun Home by Alison Bechdel is the first graphic novel I have ever read. It took a little while to grow accustomed to the way in which I was suppose to read it. Fun home is a quick but difficult read. Bechdel uses a lot of words that I am completely unfamiliar with and struggle to put together there meanings. Though the idea of it being a graphic novel is intriguing because frankly who doesn’t love pictures, I just find that since the story doesn’t interest me the pictures can’t save it.

                Alison who is the main character and also the author speaks of her childhood upbringing. Her family was very estranged and Alison found herself to develop emotional problems especially in result of her father’s lack of emotional connection to her. Alison grew to have OCD symptoms and had a real difficult time trying to figure out who she was throughout her teenage years into her college years. Alison having revealing to her parent that she was a lesbian, even though she had yet to even experiment. Then found out that a few weeks later that her father mysteriously died. The term mysterious comes into accord because Alison and her mother believe that it was a suicide. While in the reports it simply just said that a truck had hit him. Alison’s father was a very troubled man; he himself was in a loveless marriage simply because he was gay and had various affairs. Alison believes that there was some connection in her father’s death to the suicide of his favorite author.

                Alison used information she found in books to piece together that she was a lesbian. But throughout the book there were various hints that not only was she one, but that both of her parents knew it all along. Even though it gravely upset her mother to find out she was gay, but her father only simply said that it’s healthy to experiment. Alison made herself out to be the stereotypical lesbian “I bought myself a present. (Swiss Army knife) A symbol of self-reliance? At any rate, it seemed like something a lesbian would have.” (Page 78) Alison attributed that she craved manly things because her father had craved for womanly things. Her father was obsessed with decorating, flowers and many other things that wouldn’t be deemed manly. “Where’s your barrette? It keeps the hair out of your eyes. Father says. Alison says, so would a crew cut.” (Page 96)