That incredible alchemy is clearly evident and most effectively used in Chapter Five, The Canary-Colored Caravan of Death. A caption describes Bechdel's home as an artists' colony. The image shows the family in the house, with each member in his or her own bubble of solitude, writing, playing the guitar or doing restoration work. These pages also chronicle the beginning, at age 10, of the author's obsessive-compulsive disorder, which, on the good side, helped her become such a metic-ulous archivist of her life.
Here again the images enhance the text. We see the number of edges of flooring Bechdel felt compelled to count before she could cross a threshold. Or how, doubting her own diary, she obsessively began adding the phrase "I think" to each sentence. (To save time, "I think" eventually became a symbol that she would add to whole pages of the journal.)
With a closeted father in the house, perhaps it was natural to doubt the truth. At 13, Bechdel gets a hint of her father's secret when he confides that he has been ordered by the court to see a psychiatrist. His reason is simply: "I'm bad. Not good like you."
The mandated six months of counseling hints at a more serious offense than the official charge of offering beer to a minor in his car. The most direct communication father and daughter shared is recalled in a particularly powerful two-page sequence. On a ride to a movie theater, eyes never leaving the road, Bechdel's father tentatively talks about his sexual experiences. She feels a surge of connection, but the moment passes all too soon.
The bittersweet relationship of parent and child is conveyed again and again in Fun Home. Fittingly, the memoir ends with two images that echo the bad times and the good. The top half of the final page shows the truck about to strike; the bottom half depicts daughter, in mid-leap, waiting to be caught in her father's arms. The juxta-position of the two images is compelling and striking. They also offer reader and author a choice: appreciate what was had or continue to yearn. In completing Fun Home Bechdel may have finally ended her longing.
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