In the first few chapters of Fun Home , Allison Bechdel painstakingly recreates her childhood home. The house is not only constructed on pen and paper, but also through numerous descriptions of its every detail, especially as they relate to her father, Bruce, in many ways the architect of the house. The reader gets a very strong sense of what it would have been like to live in that house, no detail is too small to evade either of the Bechdels in their craftsmanship. Through this close look at where she grew up, Bechdel also investigates her father, using the house as a stand in for him. However, after the beginning of the book, the time that corresponds most closely with Bechdel's really young childhood, this device recedes into the background. As the Allison of the book matures, she becomes able to view her father in more broad terms, and the reader follows the same path. Fun Home is then able to reach outside of the actual house, and further into the life of ...