Biographical

Fun Home is first and foremost a biographical work, recalling the author's life and relationships with others, primarily her father Bruce. This book doubles as an autobiography for her dad, recalling his brief time in the army during WWII, the way he met her mother in Europe, and the inheritence of the family run funeral home that would become the namesake for the book (fun home being the nickname Alison and her siblings gave it.) From the beginning, Alison establishes that she saw her father in terms of fiction, and so processed their differences.

We learn about the development of Alison's Obsessive Compulsive disorder at age ten, the way that her parent's passions gave way to discovering her own love for drawing, and her first period.

If we read this purely as a memoir, we learn more about not just the artist's life, but about the life of her parents and others around her. It serves to tell a story of what shaped Alison into who she is, and why she currently processes the world around her the way she does. You feel that you know the writer a little better, and may even see things you relate to while you're at it.