Author-illustrator Bechdel constructs an entertaining autobiography of her eccentric upbringing by a closeted gay father and her long-suffering mother in a funeral home in Western Pennsylvania.

The title, of course, begins with an abbreviation of Funeral.  The author's budding awareness of her own homosexuality parallels her discover of her father's secrets.

Unlike her father, the author is able to reveal her sexual preference to the world at large.  The contrast between the two generations is presented starkly-- her father is only able to express his sexuality furtively, and he's an utterly miserable and fairly unpleasant person to be around, whereas the author is able to belong to a community of like-minded people and express herself in print.

While homosexuality is accepted today to a larger extent than it once was, it's still clearly controversial.  It seems ironic that the politicians and preachers who denounce it the most often get caught smoking crystal meth with gay prostitutes or coming on to random boys in public restrooms, but I'd suggest that one of the main engines of power in many Western countries is the differential between an esoteric circle in which homosexuality is mandatory and an exoteric circle in which it is forbidden.  Witness Karl Rove's attendence at S&M functions in bondage gear, the midnight tours of gay child prostitues in the first Bush White House, the homoerotic rituals in various armed forces or in the Nazi inner circle.  If acceptance of gay sexuality becomes universal, it will be interesting to see if one of the results is a decline in insider politics.  However, it is also likely that newer forms of institutionalized secrecy and new taboos will fill in the hole, as it were.

It is also possible that the universality of oppression of gays is somewhat overstated.  Documentary evidence indicates that homosexuality was common and accepted in cowboy, lumberjack, pirate, monastic and many other communities throughout the past.  Perhaps the period of persecution was itself the aberration, a brief and temporary interruption in a general story of people going about their sexual business.

In any case, this book is thoroughly of its time, and it is likely that future generations will see its tale of self-discovery and liberation as a quaint and curious artifact of a nearly forgotten past.