Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Given the (understandable) fuss that’s being made over the new Lisa Kron-Jeanine Tesori musical version of Fun Home, it strikes me that those who haven’t read this powerfully poignant 2006 comic-book memoir about the suicide of the author’s closeted gay father should do so at once and see what they’ve been missing. The dry, detached candor and jagged emotional edges of Bechdel’s first-person narration are a big part of what made Fun Home so distinctive, and they’re largely missing from the softer, sentimentalized stage version. The real Fun Home is a much tougher and far more impressive piece of work (TT).
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
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