Been meaning to check out the Green Lake Library‘s Book Club, but never seem to be able to finish the book in time for the meeting? This is a great time to dive in. October’s book is not only an amazing piece of literature (and art!), it is also a very quick and satisfying read.
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, by Allison Bechdel, belongs to the deceptively-named “graphic novel” genre. No, it’s not graphic in a graphic-violence or -sex kinda way, and no, it is not actually a novel. Rather, it is a memoir written in a graphical format.
Bechdel riffs on her youth, coming of age while living with her family in a once-grand Victorian house that her eccentric father obsessively restores. A few choice reviews:
“If David Sedaris could draw, and if Bleak House had been a little funnier, you’d have Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.” –Amy Bloom, author of A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You
“A masterpiece about two people who live in the same house but different worlds, and their mysterious debts to each other.” –TIME Magazine Best Book of the Year
“One of the best memoirs of the decade … at once hypercontrolled and utterly intimate.” –New York Magazine, 10 Best Books of 2006
“Fun Home must be the most ingeniously compact, hyper-verbose example of autobiography to have been produced … a pioneering work.” –Sean Wilsey, The New York Times Book Review
“Graphic storytelling at its most profound.” –a Los Angeles Times Favorite Book of 2006
| Afternoon Book Group at Seattle Public Library’s Green Lake Branch 7364 E. Green Lake Dr. N. Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009, 3:30 – 4:45 p.m. Free. Everyone is welcome. This group meets the second Wednesday of the month at 3:30 PM. For more information, call the Green Lake Branch at 206-684-7547 |
Next month’s title? The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud.
