Fun home prep #2

Alison Bechdel wanted to give her father a “proper burial.” Though he did die from a his car crashing into a truck, there was no proof to say that it was a suicide. She suspected that it might have been and implied it heavily, possibly because her mother asked him to divorse two weeks prior and he was also reading a book by Camus, “A Happy Death.” Though there’s nothing wrong with reading and in fact he read a lot, he could have been leaving them deliberately as a cry for help. He wasn’t very expressive afterall and this could have been eating away at him. She says that his death was “quite possibly his consummate artifice, his masterstroke.” He did have a way of being extravagant and could have possibly wanted to preserve the image he created for himself to take away from his divorse, sexuality and to maybe most importantly preserve the fruits of his overcompensation of everything looking fine when it really wasn’t. The home’s design was definitely a manifestation of that. He also was always trying to control his perception and narrative and so this may have been him saying he was just done. She and her mother talked about it saying that they may be believing it because it’s easier to accept in some ways. He’s always been such a controlling figure that it almost makes sense that he would want to die on his own terms. Even his tombstone was in the shape he wanted and was so emblematic of him because it stood out and was unique. It wasn’t carved from the stone he wanted because it would erode so in some ways he also couldn’t control even after death. This all contributes to how the entire burial isn’t what he wanted because mostly everything is on his terms. No one is supposed to know if he committed a suicide afterall but the fact thta his family kind of knows already conflicts with the narrative and now Alison could do things on her terms and she feels comfortable enough to give him a “proper burial, as in an honest one and one that is befitting of what he has at least tried to do. He was complicated, had quirks and had many problematic aspects, flaws and unresolved issues with him and despite them she wanted to communicate that there was more to him than people knew and than he put out. He had a strong presence to him when he was alive and despite all of who he was, it’s hard to accept that he’s gone and no longer existing.