Judging a Family Tragicomic by Its Cover

I was probably the only one who didn’t notice this right away, but as I was picking up my copy of Fun Home last week, I realized that Bruce Bechdel is the only member of Alison’s family that is not featured on the cover (for this particular edition of the book). This shocked me at first, seeing as the novel revolves so centrally around Alison and the relationship with her father, and I was very interested in what this design potentially implied.

Then, as I looked through the pages of the novel again, I realized that a super similar image appears on the bottom of page 16, accompanied by the text “he used his skillful artifice not to make things, but to make things appear to be what they were not.”

(The cover for my edition of the novel)

Even though the family is relatively in the same position and their clothes and expressions are the same, we now get a wider version of the shot and discover that Bruce is the one taking this picture. I was again immediately interested in the specific connection of this image and the cover since it seems like such a subtle reference. Typically, covers don’t truly mean anything or add to the book (and so we don’t judge them by their covers), but because Alison is both the author and the illustrator and drew each image in her book so precisely, I thought that the cover illustration must have also been very intentional and specific to her message.

As I started thinking more about the story through the lens of the cover image and the illustration on page 16, I thought of a few connections between them and how even though he is not outwardly featured, the cover may actually serve to represent Bruce’s overarching role in Alison’s story.

One way in which the cover image connects to the story is that it highlights the purpose and aesthetic of Bruce’s art, and therefore makes it fitting to be included on the cover of the book. Not only do we see from the cover image that the family is in front of their home, which is Bruce’s biggest and proudest creation, but the image on page 16 shows that he also carefully created this photo as a whole. He appears to be making sure that it is perfect and looks “ideal,” and that as long as he gets his photo to show how everything is “impeccable,” it did not matter what actually happened and if his family made it to their church (17). All of Bruce’s creations and especially the house are, as the caption and Alison discuss, made to “make things appear to be what they were not,” and to “conceal” or hide what lays on the inside and his true self (16). This serves as an interesting connection to the cover image because the cover literally is concealing and protecting all that is inside of the novel. Furthermore, the cover art highlights the differences between Alison’s and Bruce’s art and character as well, which is central to the entire story. This is because while Bruce created the photo on the cover which was made to conceal, Alison peels back these layers and reveals truth and honesty through her art as readers physically peel back the cover. These ideas of being opposites, such as concealing vs. revealing, and complementing each other in these ways are crucial to Alison’s story.

Therefore, I think that the cover image also signifies how Alison’s life was created and shaped by Bruce. Most notably and simply, the entire novel revolves around their relationship and how he is intertwined with Alison’s coming-of-age narrative. Because this journey is greatly centered around discovering her sexual identity and gender identity and expression, the connections between her coming out story and her father’s life demonstrate that Bruce is a central part of her narrative and helped create who she is and how she develops. 

For example, one moment (although there are so many others) that demonstrates how their stories are closely connected is when Alison says: “and in a way, you could say that my father’s end was my beginning. Or more precisely, that the end of his lie coincided with the beginning of my truth” (117). Describing what she means, Alison says that she had been “lying too, for a long time.” She recalls the moment when she was with her father at the luncheonette years before, saw a woman, and says “I didn’t know there were women who wore men’s clothes and had men’s haircuts.” She instantly feels at “home,” but Bruce says, “is that what you want to look like?” to which Alison responds “no” because she had no other choice (118-119). This example shows how in a way, Bruce pushed Alison into living this lie (while “attempting to express something feminine through [her]”) and demonstrates how he really affected her coming-of-age journey and being able to discover and express who she truly is (98). Then, the “end of his lie” (which Alison connects to the end of his life through her accompanying illustration of the road) is at the same time the beginning of Alison’s truth, having just come out and now being able to live unafraid and true to her identity. Through these correlations and many others throughout the novel, Alison’s coming-of-age journey is, in some ways, linked to Bruce’s story and becomes part of his creation. Just like he crafted the image on the cover, he helped create the base of the Fun Home narrative for Alison. 

Additionally, in other ways, Alison shows that part of her story depends entirely on Bruce’s. For example, in Chapter 7 especially (“The Antihero’s Journey”), she explores how it is necessary for him to have been everywhere he was and lived through everything that he did for Alison to be where she is. She contemplates, “if my father had ‘come out’ in his youth, if he had not met and married my mother… where would that leave me?” (197). In other words, because Bruce lived the “Antihero’s Journey,” with never being able to “cross the threshold” of Beech Creek and fully come of age, Alison was able to live the “Hero’s Journey” and build her story. In another example, because her father “did hurtle into the sea," he was "there to catch” Alison and support her narrative when she “leapt” and began to live her truth (232). Therefore, I think that the cover can symbolize that although Alison created this book about her life and her father, he helped create and frame the story within, just as he did (and Alison represents) with the picture.

Even though Bruce is not directly depicted on the cover image, I think that this illustration can reveal so much about the focus and message of the novel. It can symbolize everything from the role of Bruce’s art in Alison’s life, and how it contrasts with her own, to the relationship and connections between them both and its effects. Her father formed not only this featured image but also her story as a whole, a dynamic which, although incredibly complex, Alison Bechdel is able to capture through just a single illustration.

Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007.