If you’ve never read a graphic novel but are feeling boldly experimental, then there could be few better introductions to the format than Fun Home. First published in 2006, this memoir of Alison Bechdel’s childhood in rural Pennsylvania and her early adulthood has won countless awards and earned wide critical acclaim.

As she grew up, Alison had inklings that she might be a lesbian, and she eventually came out at the age of 19. Her high-school teacher father – who had a penchant for relentless interior decoration of their Gothic revival house and covert dalliances with his young male students – remains in the closet. He is prone to frequent rages and Alison writes that his shame and self-loathing pervaded the family home.

But the father also had a sideline in his family’s business of operating a funeral home, or ‘fun home’, as Alison and her brothers would refer to it. From an early age they would watch as their father embalmed corpses.

Shortly after coming out to her parents, Alison got a phone call at college, informing her that her father has died in a road accident. She suspected that it was suicide.

If you think that graphic novels are just for knuckleheads who can’t deal with complex stories, then read this insightful book and have your illusions dispelled.

Reviewed by Tim Graham