Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and LGBTQ Appalachian Literature: Photography and How We Know What We Know
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Although Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home (2006) is rarely discussed within the context of Appalachian literature, this graphic memoir is indeed an account of a young woman growing up queer in small-town Appalachia, specifically in Beech Creek, Pennsylvania, a town in Clinton County that is solidly within the Appalachian Regional Commission’s borders of Appalachia. Bechdel rarely uses the words “Appalachia” or “Appalachian” in Fun Home, but facets of her story will prove recognizable to those who are familiar with Appalachia, including the way that Bechdel’s hometown and the surrounding region have been marked by a culture of extraction and by the boom-and-bust cycles that accompany such an economy. In this book’s words and images, Bechdel describes her family, the family business (a funeral home), her sexual coming-of-age, the circumstances surrounding her father’s death (maybe accidental but probably suicide), and the revelations and realizations about her father that followed after she came out to her parents as a lesbian. Bechdel’s book characterizes the dilemma of someone growing up as a queer Appalachian, torn between staying in their hometown near family (as Bechdel’s father chose to do) or moving away to an urban center (as Bechdel did). Through the memoir’s use of photographs and Bechdel’s emphasis on her father’s obsession with artifice and appearance, she calls into question both perception and memory, interrogating how we know the things that we think we know.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Allison E. Carey is a professor and department chair of English at Marshall University in Huntington, WV. She is the author of Doubly Erased: LGBTQ Literature in Appalachia (forthcoming, WVU Press). Her teaching and scholarly interests include Appalachian literature, YA literature, English education, and the digital humanities.
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and LGBTQ Appalachian Literature: Photography and How We Know What We Know
Although Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home (2006) is rarely discussed within the context of Appalachian literature, this graphic memoir is indeed an account of a young woman growing up queer in small-town Appalachia, specifically in Beech Creek, Pennsylvania, a town in Clinton County that is solidly within the Appalachian Regional Commission’s borders of Appalachia. Bechdel rarely uses the words “Appalachia” or “Appalachian” in Fun Home, but facets of her story will prove recognizable to those who are familiar with Appalachia, including the way that Bechdel’s hometown and the surrounding region have been marked by a culture of extraction and by the boom-and-bust cycles that accompany such an economy. In this book’s words and images, Bechdel describes her family, the family business (a funeral home), her sexual coming-of-age, the circumstances surrounding her father’s death (maybe accidental but probably suicide), and the revelations and realizations about her father that followed after she came out to her parents as a lesbian. Bechdel’s book characterizes the dilemma of someone growing up as a queer Appalachian, torn between staying in their hometown near family (as Bechdel’s father chose to do) or moving away to an urban center (as Bechdel did). Through the memoir’s use of photographs and Bechdel’s emphasis on her father’s obsession with artifice and appearance, she calls into question both perception and memory, interrogating how we know the things that we think we know.
