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SMNTY Classics: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: I'm welcome to stuff I Never told you, Protection of
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: iHeart Radio. And today, in honor of Pride Month, we
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: are bringing back one that I could have sworn we
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: already brought back, but we haven't. And it is a
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: book club episode we did on fun Home, a family
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: tragic comic.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Yes, which we've been.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Talking a lot about the whole thing with book banning
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: and especially around LGBTQ plus books in this context, and
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: I know Alison Bechdel has been speaking about it.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: And when we did this episode, this book.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Was the target of a lot of book banning efforts
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: and some of them very very intense, very intense. But
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: we do love when we get the chance to do
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: graphic novel right, plays on graphic novels that maybe are
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: not what you would think of. Yes, and this was
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: a good I think this is one of the first
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: ones we did that was more serious than.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: Like other things.
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: So good, it's so good, Yes, So please enjoy this
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: classic episode. Hey, this is Sandy and Samantha, and welcome
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: to Stephane Never told you Production of iHeart Radio.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Samantha, were you did you ever get into drawing? Did
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: you ever want to be someone who could draw.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: I really wanted to be an artist of sorts. I
• 1:51
  Speaker 5: felt like if I could just do something amazing, so
• 1:54
  Speaker 5: I used to do all of my pictures of people
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: would always be of their profile. I felt like, at
• 2:01
  Speaker 5: least if I had the nose already on there, then
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: I could do everything else.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: But yeah, they were a big bubble face. It was
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: really sad.
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: So I had a lot of bubble face drawings. And
• 2:11
  Speaker 5: then I was able to draw penguins. I was very
• 2:13
  Speaker 5: proud of that. So I was like, oh, I can
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: draw a penguin. That's about the extent of it. I
• 2:19
  Speaker 5: can't draw stick figures really well either, Like you should
• 2:24
  Speaker 5: be easy.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: But it's not for me. Nothing connects. I don't know why.
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: Whenever we play any type of like win loser draw
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: or you know, guessing games on those routes, people don't
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: want me on their team. I don't I do know why.
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: But I was never good at it. I really wish
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: I had the talent.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: What about you?
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Oh well, first of all, I forgot about the drawing
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: games on the phone. That's at the early stage of
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: the pandemic when everyone was like, oh, yes, right, we
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: shall do whatever we need to keep up these connections.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: I'm curious about the penguins. Was that a choice that
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: you made or was that just something you discovered?
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: So I'm not really sure why we started drawing penguins,
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: but it became like where we use them as kind
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: of puns. So, but it wasn't necessarily about the penguins.
• 3:17
  Speaker 5: It would be about movie titles, so the one would
• 3:20
  Speaker 5: distinctly remember So a good friend of mine who actually
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: is the older sister of Krestin Conger of s Mentee.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: That's how I met all of them. Honestly.
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: Anna and I used to just draw random like penguins
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: and then make little jokes out of them. And my
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: favorite one, which she did was Splenda in the Grass,
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: so it would be a penguin holding a splenda in
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: tall grass. One of my favorite movies growing up was
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: Splendor in the Grass, which is really really sad and ridiculous.
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: But yeah, so we would do things like that and
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: then we would just pass them all around to each other.
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: I don't know why, but and it was always penguins
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: holding something.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: Uh huh, I love that. Yeah, that's fantastic. Do you
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: have a many any of them?
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: Men.
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: I think they're gone. Oh I know, I'm very sorry
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: about this. I can distinctly remember hers was much better
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: than mine too, by the way, way better. Mine would
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: just be a penguin who like would wear a hat
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: or something.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Still, I love drawing and coloring, as you have seen
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: as an adult, Samantha. If the table mat at a restaurant, yes,
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: has the crowns and like the canvas, then forget the food.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm doing.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: And I still like there's a restaurant I went to
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: a couple of years ago where it's kind of hard to.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: Get your picture on the wall, and I got my
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: picture on the wall.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: And I took a picture of it as if I'd
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: won some great award, like a picture that you color
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: on the wall. But I was never very good at
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: it either. I think I've said before the lowest grade
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: I've ever gotten was an art. But both of my
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: friends were really good at it, so I was desperate.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: I kept trying and trying and trying, and I would
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: illustrate all the stuff I would write. I would put
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: in like little boxes, and the pictures were terrible. They
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: were so bad. I could trace things. Though I was
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: good at tracing. I guess that's not so great overall.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: But better than what I can do.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Then I'm not sure that's the case. I have been
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: drawing a lot for D and D for Dungeons and Dragons. Nice,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: I draw the maps and uh. We recently played Dungeons
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: and Dragons for the first time in person since this
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: particular campaign started, and I got out my very silly,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: childishly drawn maps and they act as if I was
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: like presenting them the Decoration of Independence.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: They were so excited, like this the real thing.
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: Yes, unlike you compared it to the Declaration of Independence.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: They like gas allows. Well.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: For this edition, book Club, we are talking about a
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: graphic novel, which is why this was on my mind,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: and because it is Pride Month, we wanted to talk
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: about fun Home, a family tragic comic written by American
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: cartoonist Alison Bechdell in two thousand and six, and yes,
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: that Bechdel of the Bechdel Test. She also wrote the
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: comic strip Dykes to Watch Out for Are You My Mother?
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: A comic drama, and.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: A memoir published in twenty twenty one called The Secret
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: to Superhuman Strengths. I think it just came out in May,
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: so very recent. In twenty thirteen, A fun Home was
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: adapted for the stage by playwright Lisa Krohn and composer
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Janine Tassori, and the play went on to win several
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Tony Awards. Fun Home is an autobiographical look at Bechdell's
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: complicated relationship with her father growing up in rural Pennsylvania
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: at the fun Home, the funeral home her dad runs,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: but I guess it also functions for the house that
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: they actually live in, which was sort of this Victorian museum, right,
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: which we'll talk about more a bit later. After her
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: father's death, possibly by suicide, she wrestled with understanding her father,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: his choices and the things he kept from her, and
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: how that interacts with her own coming out and understanding
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: of gender identities, sexual orientation, and gender roles. The book
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: also delves into family dysfunction and emotional abuse, suicide, coming
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: of age literature and how that can be a tool
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: for understanding ourselves in each other, and sexual orientation and
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: attitudes around it and how they've changed or.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: Haven't over the years.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: It's beautifully illustrated and draws you into the world. It's
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: often called a graphic novel for word lovers. A lot
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: of the reviews will say like it made me go
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: to the dictionary more than once, which, yes, me too.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: It's told in a nonlinear way, with new memories being
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: repeated and re examined in light of new information.
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so we definitely have to talk about the author.
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: Bechtel was born in nineteen sixty and started drawing as
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: a child. At one time during her childhood, she expressed
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: interest in being a cartoonist. She started drawing characters that
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: looked a lot like her out of college when she
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: didn't see them anywhere. Some of her first jobs after
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: college were boring jobs she took so that she could draw,
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: and this is where she created Dyce to Watch Out for,
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: a humorous comic strip published from nineteen eighty three to
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: two thousand and eight that followed a group of radical
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: lesbians partly inspired by Howard Cruse's gay comics founded in
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: the nineteen seventies. It's from one of these strips that
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: we get the famous Bechdel test and the idea she
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: credits to her friend Liz Wallace. Where you know, I
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: didn't read this out of the actual comic, but it
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: is stated where the friend says, I will not go
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: see this movie unless at least two female characters are
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: talking to each other and it's not about a man.
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: And so she talks about how the last film she
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: saw was Alien, right, and I thought of you.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: But yes, it was funny reading about it because it's
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: named after Bechdale. She was like, yeah, I don't really
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: like movies really.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: Before my friend she.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Was just like, hey, I'll take it though. It's cool.
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: Hey.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: So this book took Bechdel several years to create. I
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: believe I read seven. She would photograph herself in the
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: poses of the characters to use as reference when drawing,
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: over four thousand photos in total, and you can see
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: side by side comparisons and it's really amazing. I recommend
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: looking it up. She also referenced real diary entries from
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: her life. She was meticulous in documenting things and has
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: discussed the failings of memory, and she even discusses that
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: within the book. And this hammers home the fact that
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: while this is a graphic novel, it is autobiographical with
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: real life and real events and real loss and violence
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: and pain behind it.
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: Right in twenty fourteen, Bechdel was one of the twenty
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: first recipients chosen for the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant in
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: part for quote changing our notions of contemporary memoir and
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: explaining the expressive potential of the graphic form. And she's
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: appeared in an episode of The Simpsons in which in
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: the episode where Lisa writes her own graphic novel autobiography
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: called Sad Girl, with illustrationations by March, and they appear
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: together on a comic panel with several other famous cartoonists
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: as well, So that's really fun. It was definitely targeted
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: by many scissorship and banning efforts, with some labeling at
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: pornography because it contained all sex between two women and
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: a woman masturbating four pages of the two hundred and
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: forty page book, by the way, and it still was like, huh, really,
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: this is pornography.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I guess it could be.
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: It was even censored in banned at the college level,
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: so that says a lot during our time period, I'm sure.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that made national headlines, so you can read
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: all about what happened there because it caught, which.
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: Is kind of ironic because she talks about censorship in
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: the graphic novel.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I mean.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: A lot of people rightfully pointed out to say it's
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: pornography when it's so few, like four pages out of
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: two hundred and forty or whatever. I mean, that's like
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: saying a movie is pornographic for having one sex scene
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: in it in the whole movie.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: It's just disingenuous, right and incorrect.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: A few years ago, in twenty seventeen, Bechdel returned to
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: her small hometown to see a production of the play.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: She said it was super surreal. It was the same
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: theater where my mother would do her amateur dramatics, and
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: my father was on the board.
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: I was a little afraid.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: I felt anxious, like, oh my god, I'm going to
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: see all these people and they're going to be pissed
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: off with me. Because there were people in my hometown
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: who did not think fun Home was a good thing.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: They thought it dishonored my family. There was this great
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: warmth that I just hadn't expected. I had thought I
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: was going back to nineteen seventy seven, but the place
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: has changed, it has evolved. My parents, who had met
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: in a play would get to go on living in one, right,
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: I can't imagine.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do.
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: Like how she mentions the fact that she was kind
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: of glad her mother wasn't alive to see it because
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: her mother did have a hard time with a book
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: in general, which.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: I've thought about that, you know, you and I have
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: talked about this.
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: We talked about this with Nicole, the author who came
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: and talked about her book. And when we were talking
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: about what would our parents think is it?
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Is it going to dishonor them do? Are they gonna
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: be hurt by this?
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: And yeah, she talked about that fact that she her mother,
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: I think eventually accepted it, didn't love it, accepted it,
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: but that.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: The musical may have been too much for her.
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: It would have to be the only way she could
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: really view it is if she was alone watching it.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like, I mean, I hate to harp
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: on this point all the time, but coming from a
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: small town, I cannot imagine going back to that small town,
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: right and having a play about like me coming out
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: and family drama and having conservative small town Georgia watching.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: It, right.
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: As well as the fact that not the coming out
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: was also kind of indicated some really unsavory things for
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: the town and especially from her family that.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: You're like, ooh, ooh yeah, oh, she gonna let it
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: all out. Okay, here we go.
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: But of course, even with all the controversy, as we
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: talked about before, she has won many awards in accolades,
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: including The book was listed as one of the top
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: ten best books of two thousand and six by Time Magazine.
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: It was also given the Eisner Award for the Best
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: Reality Series Works in two thousand and seven, but it
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: also was part given the Award for Best Graphic Album
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: as well, and she was nominated as Best Writer and
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: Artist with the same award. She also won the Stonewall
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: Book Awards Israel Fishman Non Fiction Award in two thousand
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: and seven. She was given the Guggenheim A Fellowship in
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: twenty twelve, Ink Part Award in twenty twelve, as well
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from Publishing Triangle
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: in twenty twelve.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: So many awards.
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: She again won the MacArthur Fellowship in twenty fourteen, Lambda
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Literature in twenty fourteen,
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: the Eric sent Institute Pride for Excellence in Mental Health
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: and Media in twenty fifteen, and.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Goes on and on and on.
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: I feel like we also haven't mentioned it yet, but
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: about how she addresses the mental health stuff that she
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: had to go through with her compulsiveness and her fears
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: and anxiety that kind of came out because partially from
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: her family and her trying to figure out her own identity.
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: But it was really interesting as she talks about it,
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: especially when she talks about writing and doing the diary
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: and journaling and how that became compulsive.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: For her but also a release. It was a very
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: interesting dynamic to see as well.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and she's been very very outspoken about therapy, a
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: strong proponent of therapy. So the plot is primarily an
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: examination of Bechdel's father, Bruce, a closeted gay man, and
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: her own coming out as a lesbian and the relationship
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: that the two of them had, the very very complicated relationship.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: After going to college and realizing her own sexual orientation,
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Bechdel sends a letter home to her parents about it,
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: and this is and she learns from her mother that
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: her father had affairs with several men, including a few
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: who were underaged. With this revelation, both Alison and her
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: dad struggled to come to terms with how repressing his
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: sexual orientation may have impacted both of them. Her father
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: died a few months later after her letter, and also
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: two weeks after her mother. Bechdel's mother filed for divorce
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: from him.
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: While Allison and her father are the primary characters, her
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: mother and brothers are consistently present, along with her first girlfriend, Joan,
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: as is the house they live in itself, an elaborate,
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: meticulous nineteenth century home styled by her father but maintained
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: by her mother, a home that her father more openly
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: cared for than his family, and all the beautiful ornate
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: objects in it. And I do love the beginning comparison
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: that she has of it with the Adams family. Yeah,
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: it was such a big, great beginning. It was like, Okay,
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: I see exactly what you're saying.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: It has an outward appearance of perfection that he projects
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: only possible with the help and pain of others. So
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: they're constantly having to rearrange and dust the funeral home
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: he inherited after his own father's death. He and his wife, Helen,
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: who had been living in Europe before that, had to
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: return to Pennsylvania once his father had died. The depth
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: of passion and hope and dreams, the thought of escaping
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: the past of a new life. It kind of just
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: all disappeared. Yeah.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so they were Helen and Bruce were off in
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Europe and there's all the like happiness in front of them,
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: and then Bruce's father died after return.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: Home and it did kind of represent like his.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Father's death, but also yes, he's inheriting this funer home
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: and all those dreams they had in Europe are kind of.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: Like gone, yeah, fizzled outs.
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And I do love Bechdel's drawings of the comparison
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: of her mom before and after. It's it's it's like, oh,
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: that's too real for her and her.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Family was like yeah, I did. That resonate everywhere.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: And art is almost character in this book too, something
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: that moves all of the human characters. Allison's parents met
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: out a play. Bruce takes refuge in literature and house design,
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Helen and music. In one of the few ways that
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Allison can connect to her emotionally abusive father is through literature.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: It is constant throughout.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: At first, he is the one doing most of the
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: recommending to Allison, and he's pretty fierce about his opinions,
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: but after Allison goes to college, she recommends some books
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: to him, almost as a way to open the door
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: to them, talking about her coming out as a lesbian
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: and her father's closeted homosexuality or bisexuality, don't know for sure,
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: trying to bond over their sharede yet queerness. Also, just
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: want to throw in here, there was seventeen year Cicadas
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Nixon Watergate was happening, and I was like, wow, time
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: really is a flat circle.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: So we have so many themes we want to go over.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: First, are going to pause for a quick break for
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsor.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: So one of the themes we wanted to start out with,
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: which is probably one of the biggest of not the
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: biggest throughout, is Allison's relationship with her father, which was
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: fraught with yes, emotional abuse and miscommunication, and a lot
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: of her thoughts on this came out after her father's
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: death and her kind of re examining a lot of memories,
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: which I think is one of the most interesting parts
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: of this book is that like you see one a
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: memory presented and then she gets new information like, oh,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: your father had affairs with young men and it recontects
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: memories right that she has, she understands them differently. But
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: as something that we've talked about a lot on this
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: show is we get to see her processing through the
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: grief over his death in ways that are quote unquote
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: not normal. So for one, she gets really angry when
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: I can't remember it's the priest or the person presiding
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: over the funeral like pats her shoulder and she wants
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: to like rip his arm away. She throws like their
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: flags put on his grave at one point when she
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: comes to visit and she throws them away, little flags.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: And then when someone asked her about it, how are you,
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: and she's like, oh, my dad died, and she says
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: it really upbeat, is kind of laughing, and he's like, oh,
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: that's funny, that's weird, and she's like, no, he actually did,
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: and she starts laughing, And that's just how she reacts
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: to it. But it does, I mean, it is presented
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: in a way even through the literature she cites through
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: it where it's absurdist. Almost his death is kind of absurdist,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: especially when she was raised in the fun home, this
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: funeral home, and that did make your kind of cavalier towards.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: Death, right.
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: I think it's interesting too that she uses death as
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: it intertwines through the entire book, and it's not just
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: the father's death. We're talking about the death in literature.
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: So she talks about those things so many times in
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: comparison to her father and an author that he left
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: that died, or something that happens within the book that.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: HiT's right on the head again.
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: Yes, the origins of fun home or funeral home, and
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: her own understanding of death and mortality, which she had
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: to grow up with at a very young age because
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: she was face to the face with death often, whether
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: it's because she had to vacuum, you know, the actual
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: funeral home, or whether she was had to go and
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: hand scissors to her father while he was embalming a body,
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: and the fact that she didn't know if this was
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: a test or not, and so she made sure to
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: be completely unemotional and without fear, and she felt like
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: that was something that she had to do in the
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: face of death to prove to him that she was okay,
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: or that she was worthy something along those lines. So
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: I feel like even though we do, yes, we definitely
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: talk about grief and having to grieve over or not
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: grieve over in the most normal, as she would like
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: to say, and we would not categorize anything as normal,
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: but quote unquote normal. In her father's death, we see
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: that she's had to confront it and to show a
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: different reaction than what we would consider normal as a child,
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: especially like she has that confrontation of seeing the family
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: that died. So he said, she called it the triple Yeah,
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: that came into it, and one of them was a child,
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: her cousin. It turns out, I believe that was her age,
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: and he would just show her and like this is
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: his broken neck and just having to look and identifying
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: like yeah, there he is, and moving on without any fear,
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: without any real emotions to it. So I find that
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: interesting that she puts that as part of the string
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: throughout the entire book, that yes, we're talking about someone's
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: specific death, but also there was death, whether it's also
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: death and identity, whether we're talking about her mom who
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: had to give up so much, or her dad who
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: had to closet his own orientation or whatever whatnot.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: It is kind of like oking is.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Here, yeah, yeah, And that is probably one of the
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: biggest themes in the book as well, which we're definitely
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: going to delve into more later, but of the almost
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: preference for fiction and living in a kind of absurdist world,
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: and that fits that very well, and just the idea
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: Allison's grandmother lives in the fun home and you know,
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: if there's somebody living there that you knows not long
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: for this world perhaps, and it's just like those blurring
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: line of life and death. And then her dad went
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: through this very after he died. He ended up being
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: embalmd at his own the funeral home that he worked at, right, Yeah,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: so there's a lot of layers in that way. And
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: then yes, there is this ambiguous nature of his death
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: of did he kill himself? If so, why was it
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: something he planned in advance? And Allison is always trying
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: to find clues to find meaning in that, like if
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: he had underlined a sentence in a passage, or he
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: was the same age as f.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: Scott Fitzgerald.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Plus he remnus a couple of weeks when he died,
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: just like trying to find all these things to give
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: it some sort of meaning because there was no note
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: or anything.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: He just got hit by a sunbeam bread truck was she.
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: Menture to point out, I did find it interesting when
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: she brings out the narrative of seeing the snake when
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: they went camping, and then she was like, maybe he
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: saw a snake and he jumped back, because that's what
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: the truck driver or the motorist said that.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: He was across the road. I think was fine. All
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: of a sudden he jumps back, So no one really.
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: Knows because he was doing what he loved, gardening, which
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: is apparently something that he does almost impulsively throughout her life.
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: And she sees it, whether it's they're playing game, he
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: sees something wrong with the garden, so you must fix
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: it immediately, and that's what he was doing.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of interesting to.
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: Hear her talk about that because like, maybe it really
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: was an accident. Maybe it was the snake that's scared him,
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: and we just don't know.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's the pain, the uncertainty, not
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: that either is necessarily better, but especially in terms of
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: people in this context who love to give meaning or
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: to read these books, and they even if it is
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: absurdist ultimately, which is the word I keep come back to,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: but she uses it a lot throughout this that it
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: has weight, so you're always trying to find that the story,
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: the thread, and even the fact that it feels so
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: strange to be talking about this because this is a
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: real person, right and we're referring to her with her
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: first name, but it's a real person. But it's also
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: like a fictional almost a fictional world she created to
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: make sense of all of this, right, Yeah, So I
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: did want to read a couple quotes. Maybe I'm trying
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: to render my senseless personal loss meaningful by linking it, however,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: posthumously to a more coherent narrative, a narrative of injustice,
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: sexual shame, and fear of life considered expendable. And I
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: think that's a very human trait. I think in my case,
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: I always want to think about, like horror movies.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: I think that's a.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Very you know, if I hadn't done this then, or
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: if this person hadn't done this, they'd still be a
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: lot to day. And it feels like you're giving meaning
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: to your choices that if you do the right things
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: you'll be fine, or if you do the wrong things.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: And these are like heavy right wrong quotes, but you know,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: like that then there's some sort of punishment that happens,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: and that makes us feel better because it makes us
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: feel like we have more control over things.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: And then there's another story that her grandmother, Allison's grandmother
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: used to tell the children, and it was a story
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: about her father being very young and getting stuck in
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: the mud and not being able to get out and
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: having to be rescued, like pulled out.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: By an older man.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: And after he dies and Allison is thinking she's hard
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: for her to imagine him in the ground rotting, she says,
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: stuck in the mud for good this time, or she
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: thinks that right, Yeah.
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I do love that she and her brothers love
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: these stories because it makes her dad so human and fallible,
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: as where you know, the man that she sees at
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: that point in time is seeking perfection in everything and
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: everything must be beautiful and pristine, and so for hard to
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: imagine that he was a stuck be in mud, see
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: having to be unclothed and naked and being taken care of,
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: and such a whole thing for her that she's like
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: what and humanizing and that she just loves it as
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: if it's a fairy tale.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And I think you know, not to get
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: too deep. But I feel like he was kind of
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: stuck in the mud for most of his life, right,
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: because he couldn't really move on or accept himself fully,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: and he really wanted to present this certain persona and
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: it made him and everyone else around him unhappy.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: So it was like being stuck, right.
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: And yeah, you mentioned about the fact that about Fitzgerald
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: and in the parallels in his death kind of the
• 27:54
  Speaker 5: age and the upbringing and kind of that whole level,
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: like his love for these books. I know Ulysses ended
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: up being his most read and most loved book, but
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: he also really absolutely loved Fitzgerald's books and made sure
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: to talk about it on a consistent basis.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Apparently. I think that's how he I won't say seduce, but.
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: Seeks a long conversation with younger men is by handing
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: out Fitzgerald's books a lot of the times. But the
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: fact is, like she sees the similarity, like he kind
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: of wanted that life, and he understood that life of
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: being hidden and wanting to become someone different and being
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: something so grandiose.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: And big.
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: And I think she also talks about comparing him to
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: Robert Redford and from the movie when they saw it
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: as a family that like, I always talk about it
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: as if he made a little more sense when she
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: watched this movie and I'm like, yeah, I could get that.
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: M h.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: So we did want to talk about the sexual orientation
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: and coming out aspect of this too, because yes, the
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: damage of being caoseted on both her father and the
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: family is something that Allison examines throughout, but also wondering
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: if it would.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: Have been better or not if it was different.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: She recognizes she would not exist for one or probably wouldn't,
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: and speculated that maybe he wouldn't have lived much longer
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: due to the AIDS epidemic, which you do see like
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: on newspapers and stuff throughout news about that. Here's another quote.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: I suppose that a lifetime spent hiding one's erotic truth
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: could have a cumulative renunciary effect. Sexual shame is in
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: itself a kind of death. So, like you were talking
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: about Samantha about the multiple layers of death in this book.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: And then when Allison does send the letter to her
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: parents and then kind of gets this not what she
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: was expecting reaction, but also this bombshell or revelation her
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: about her dad. She has these feelings of being upstaged
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: by this news and then his death, and wondering if
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: coming out to your parents crossed it or was part
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: of the cause of why he did it, because she
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: seems pretty convinced that he did take his own life
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: right and still trying to put that her experience into
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: a cohesive narrative, wondering if the repression, ultimately it would
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: have been better for her family and herself after all,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: like because and it's so kind of heartbreaking because when
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: this happens, she's like, well, I hadn't really had sex
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: with any a woman yet, questioning all of the stuff,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: which makes sense to in response to how they reacted
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: to the news.
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I did love though, as she talks about in
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: later parts of the book, and she does the hindsight
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: of them spending time together, and with the fact that
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: her mother just kind of outrights as well, he's had
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: affairs with young men for blah blah blah. So she
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: starts asking and was like, oh, oh, so trying to
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: probe at her dad, and then the revelation about and
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: we're gonna talk about gender roles in a second, but
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: like they had a flipped idea of what they wanted
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: and why this conflicted with each other so much, and
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: then also kind of explaining who he was, and then
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: through the love of books and the recommendation and showing
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: themselves to each other without telling each other who they are, like,
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: you see a lot of that unfolding, and it is heartbreaking.
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: As it becomes a point that they are actually communicating
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: through their own special way, it kind of still falls apart.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: So it's definitely a big part of that.
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: And again, just we were talking about just trying to
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: identify when she sees a delivery person and she identifies
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: with her because she's dressed, as they want to say,
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: but very very masculine, and she suddenly feels like she's
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: not alone. But her father also realizes this, and that's
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: kind of one of the big narratives again at the
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: look Back, he keeps saying, yeah, I kind of knew, Yeah,
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: I kind of knew, Yeah, I kind of was there.
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: He witnesses this and realizes that she is going to
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: have a really difficult life like him. When he talks
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: about the fifties in comparison to that day that she
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: was present and even then it still wasn't easy.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: We know that the eighties and nineties were not easy.
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: But for him we be like, you know, in the
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: fifties that wasn't even thought of, that was very looked
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: down on, and just kind of that reminiscence with her
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: when they talk about that moment of her.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: When he asked, do you want to dress like her? Yeah,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: that's that who you want.
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: To be, and she's just like, uh, obviously my answer
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: has to be no.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're like giving me no space for any other
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And she's pretty young at this point when this happens,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: but like jumping way ahead, when her and her dad
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: are trying to have a conversation after she's come out,
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: they're going to the movies and they're having this really
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: stilted conversation which is beautifully illustrated and I read like
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: a breakdown of why it's so good because it makes
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: you sit with every panel of silence. It did remind
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: me of recent topic we talked about, which is parentification,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: because Alison feels more like the parent in this exchange
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: when her father finally starts to open up to her
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: a little bit about his homosexuality. She's the one that's
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: trying to be supportive and feels like she can't share
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: her experience but wants to hear his, and that moment
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: he does seem very childlike and like he's never spoken
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: out loud about this before, perhaps so especially not with
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: people and his family, right, and so vulnerable, and then
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: it shuts down very quickly and the conversation just fizzles out, right.
• 33:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Yeah, Honestly, her whole coming out at her parents'
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: reaction I thought was interesting because her mother was upset
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: and didn't want to talk to her, didn't want to
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: even acknowledge what was happening. And I'm sure this may
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: have triggered her and everyone just knowing what she was
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: going through with her own husband.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: And the dad is like, great experiment, did you partake?
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: Alrgie like it was his reaction, just thinking it was
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: not necessarily because he knows it's not just the stage,
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: but that's how he's been seeing it in his mind,
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: so he will fulfill things in the dark, to fulfill
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: his desires in the darken and in secret and hope
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: it passes. But it never does obviously, so he's wondering
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: just what she's doing or you're having, you're experimenting, like
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: I do? Great right, but that's not really are you really?
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: It still was like questioning. I thought that was an
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: interesting take as for the man like reacting for the
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: way he reacts to himself to her, who is obviously
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: very open at this point, and I thought that was
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: again really well put out by her.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: It was reality. It was what happened.
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: The fact that you know, he had to be like,
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: your mother's busy, she's kind of too upset to talk
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: right now, she's still processing.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: It was still part of the reaction.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And that's one of those situations where.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: It kind of.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Sucks because, yes, the mother is dealing with Helen has
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: this pain from what she knows about her husband, so
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: she she is.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: Reacting that way.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: And then yeah, Bruce is like very much reacting to
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: how he thinks he is. And then she Allison has
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: kind of didn't know this was a thing, right and
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: was just like, you know, trying to come out and
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: maybe the way she did it had this kind of
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: like vision of how it would go and instead it
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: kind of and you can't really blame everyone, but it
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: kind of became a very selfish thing, right.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Really did.
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And I also think like we can't go without
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: mentioning the fact that, yeah, her dad's pathological tendencies, the
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: fact that he went for young boys and even soliciting
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: with buying minors beer, and that was his only charge
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: with that whole But we know, but we know why
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: this is happening, and it's very sad because you you
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: have so many aspects of feeling sorry for people and
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: really understanding that this is a hard time. But at
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: the same time you're like, yeah, but we can't excuse this.
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: This is not a thing and she and she kind
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: of does the same thing of like, I'm not excusing this.
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: This is what happens. We know what happened, we just
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: don't talk about it and.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Kind of that way. But I'm and she, I'm sure,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: I have no idea. I didn't read this.
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: If that she had any backlash from her family for
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: revealing is saying.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Out loud, was you know when everybody's been keeping quiet.
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: So it's kind of, oh, I wonder how that went down,
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: because when family secrets happen, it's not pretty, but it's
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: also offensive for the victims or those who have been
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: affected to ignore it as well and pretend like it no.
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: It was a thing, and obviously was a thing, as
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: she would pinpoint each time when there was like this
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: dude helped us, and she would always say things like
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: this dude helped us clean out the basement, this dude
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: helped us with you know, they were all young students
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: of his, which we've talked about as many times. Is
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: obviously a power play and is inappropriate, So we can't
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: ignore those conversations either. And though it is a black
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: cloud in the family, she didn't shy away from it
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: for sure.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's also the whole sequence where they're in
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: New York and your younger brother, yeah, like goes not missing,
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: but uh, it's just painted in a way where you're like,
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: if this had gone differently, right, like almost putting her
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: father in that same box.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: But then he is fine with.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: It, Like once the situation is resolved, he like goes
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: out on the town.
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: Right, but he's very aware, yeah, of what can happen
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: and who can come after him, And it says yeah,
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: it definitely says a lot.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: My ex boyfriend gave me this book of untranslatable words,
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: and one of them in there translates to the family
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: secret that everyone knows what everyone refuses to talk about
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: oh yeah, which is yeah, that's a great word. But
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: that kind of reminds me that kind of part of
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: this mm hmm. We do have some more themes we
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: want to discuss, but first we have one more quick
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: break for word from our sponsor and we're back, Thank
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: you sponsor. So, yes, we did want to talk about
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: gender roles in this book because we do see instances
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: of dressing in gender nonconforming clothes. So Alison did that
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: with a friend of hers where they were kind of
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: playing dress up and her friend wanted to do something
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: else and she's like, no, this would be way more fun.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: Let's sis up in men's clothes.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: And she asked her dad to get her a measured
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: shirt and he said like, we'll have to measure your
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: yes meaning breast, and she was like okay, no, never mind.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: But yeah, Alison felt like she needed to fill the
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: space of masculinity her father didn't, while her father wanted
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: to express femininities through her, putting them forever at quote
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: cross purposes, a war of cross purposes.
• 39:20
  Speaker 5: I think I do love the scene in the car
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: when they had that revelation and when she's just when
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: I was younger. I wanted to be in dresses. I
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: wanted to dress like a girl. She's like, I wanted
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: to dress like a boy. Like she says it so excitedly,
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: but then it goes quiet, right, because comes down to
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: because the realization comes down to the fact that, yeah,
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: they were really at odds with each other because they
• 39:41
  Speaker 5: were envious of the other, which but we also saw
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: as Alison grows up, she is giving him advice on
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: what kind of suit he needs to wear, what kind
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: of things invests that he needs to look at, and
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: he's like, you're you're right, you know, understanding that that okay.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: At the same time, she's having the battle of not
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: wanting to wear a stupid burrett, but he is insistent
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: that she must throughout to the point that it comes physical,
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: and she's like, why is this is dumb?
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: I don't want it.
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: I just want a crew cut. She literally says, I
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: would rather have a crew cut. And I find that
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: interesting and just that level of it's not necessarily that
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: trying to make sure each of them have a defined gender,
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: but that the fact that the other wish that bet
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: were that gender.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, And I think there's a lot of shame there
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: for him of himself. But also I do believe he
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: really thought he was trying to protect her because he
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: was afraid of how society would treat her if she
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: didn't hide herself like he did. But also there's a
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: lot of instances of him living vicariously through her throughout.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: And one of the one of the scenes that sticks
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: out in my head is when she's coloring and as
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: a kid, and he takes a gun book and starts
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: coloring in it because he's like, I can do it,
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: I can do it better. And there's just a bunch
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: of instances of that too, So you can definitely see
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: like him trying to live through her and be feminine
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: through her, but it's not what she wanted and it's
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: not when she felt.
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: Or who she was.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: And then there's Alison kind of observing her mom having
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: to clean the house, cook the food, raise the kids,
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: and especially when there's a scene where Alison and her
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: mama at a table and her mom is speaking to
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: her as an adult for the first time, it was
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: kind of like I hate doing this that, like I
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: hate cleaning this stupid house and it's his house, Like
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: I don't want to do it and having that moment.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: They didn't want to live in this museum. Yeah exactly, Yeah, Yeah.
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: I think it's interesting because she, again we know that
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: at the same time she was continuing on with her education,
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: was having to defend her paper, as she's doing plays,
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: and she's trying to do all of these things. She's
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: trying to be the support of wife that goes to
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: court with him, all of these different levels. But I
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: also find it interesting at the beginning of the relationship
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: with her mother, Helen and Bruce, that it becomes a
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: little explosive and she realizes what she's kind of getting into,
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: even though at the beginning it was all poetry and
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: love stories and all of these things, and calling her
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: a crazy bitch when she didn't want to do something
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: or question something or was confused about something, or when
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: he would go out and do things that was obviously
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: against their marriage, as in he was having an affair
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: no matter what gender, she was having an affair and
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: bringing in different types of heartaches to her that when
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: she would get upset that he would call her a
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: crazy bitch. It was mentioned a few times, or she
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: would just kind of give up and just be like, Okay,
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: and just kind of do her own thing in her
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: own world, and that included doing those plays that she
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: love and doing it to her best, including memorizing everybody
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: else's lines so she didn't flub one line at all.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, and that kind of goes back to that
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: the whole fiction aspect that is in this of people
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: choosing to live in these fiction worlds more than reality.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: And yeah, like you said some that that broke my
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: heart to you and it described her. Alison described her
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: picture as dull, like she had just been dulled so
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: much from like when they first got married to several
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: years later.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: But yeah, that was.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: Kind of one instance where at least felt to me
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: that Alison was observing this between her parents and was
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: like the gender roles of her mom having to do
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: this stuff, did it necessarily make sense to take click
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: and then just wanted to mention there is a whole
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: segment of Alison getting her first period and trying so
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: desperately to hide it.
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: I do love her things of trying to figure out
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: when she needs to say it. She's like not now,
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: not now, and even talking about the suite that as
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: meticulous as she was and as factual as.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: She was for her journaling and diary.
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: They were she did not write it out or she
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: was cowed through the entire time until she finally does,
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: and her mom's reaction but non reaction. She talked about
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: her mom starts shaking, so I've been like, I don't know,
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: I didn't exactly know what that meant, but obviously it
• 44:01
  Speaker 5: was a big deal enough that she was trying not
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: to react, but she was reacting, and I found that
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: super interesting, as well as the fact that asking her
• 44:09
  Speaker 5: are you cramping? Which I feel like, yeah, I think
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: for her as a mother, she's just trying to find
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: out that she's in pain. And I was like, that
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: makes sense. That makes sense because I had extensive amounts
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: of pain from cramps and my mother understood it and
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: try to take care of me as much she could.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that was her only reaction. Do you need
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: more pets? Are you cramping?
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: Yep?
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is kind of a anti climactic because Alison
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: had been hiding it like this is going to be
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: such a huge deal, which it is, but her mom
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: was kind of like, oh, so we wanted to wrap
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: this up with art because we've been talking about that
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: art and how the fiction aspect and trying to find
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: a narrative have been just present throughout this. There are
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: so many literary references f Scott Fitzgerald, Dames Choyce, Marcel Proust,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: Kate Millet. The list goes on and on. And this
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: is one thing I related a lot to communicating with
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: your dad through art. We weren't great at communicating, but we.
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: Did love movies.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: He loved movies and I loved movies, and he would
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: send me movies when I was in college, and that's
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: what we would talk about. To a lesser extent, books.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: He was also extremely poetic and would do the same
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: thing where he would underline things or he would quote
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: things to me all the time, which I in his
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: relationship with my mom, he would write her poetry. It
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: was very similar in that, like very artistic and almost
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: presentation of here's my perfect family. And I'm not necessarily
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: sure that's what he really wanted, but it's what he
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: thought he wanted and it's what he wanted to present
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: to people. He was very much similar in this whole
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: kind of vein of quoting things and asking you to
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: read things or see certain movies or things like that.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: And I do think. I don't know. I just really
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: related to that. I really related to.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: That whole thing where it's almost easier to build this
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: fiction world or to use this fiction world to try
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: to have a conversation that might be difficult or that
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: you don't feel certain in communicating with the other person, right, And.
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think you're not the only one. People who
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: feel disconnected from their parents find a common ground. And yeah,
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: you were talking about living vicariously. One of the main
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: things in college. One of the biggest things that really
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: helped them communicate was her taking classes with literature and
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: of course having to actually take a class about ulysses
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: and having to sit and listen to her dad. Of
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: course she got to the point that she got tired
• 46:48
  Speaker 5: of it, But the fact that they were living vicariously
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: is through each other to really be in love with something,
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: or be able to discuss something, or be able to
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: understand something in such depth and perception, or maybe just
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: too too much or like a mom calmed down.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: I did love her. She's like, calm down, I think
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: you're okay.
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: Then it later transfers as the Kate Millet and the
• 47:08
  Speaker 5: fact that her dad is like, oh my god, and
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: doing the same thing. She talks about how he had
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: left that book for her, and then the vice versa.
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: She had left that book for him, and he is
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: so enthralled and loving something new, something brand new, and
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: it is because of her knowing who he was through literature,
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: and I think that was beautiful.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: That is their biggest connection.
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: Also her understanding of his death, Like that's one of
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: the biggest ways that she was able to connect to
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: his death. Whether it was by suicide or not, it
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: was through literature, Like the whether she's underlining something or
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: he's underlying something, or he's loving a character. She has
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: some kind of commonality with these books to connect to
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: him and his death. And I think it is a
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: very beautiful way of understanding him, especially with something that
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: he loved. It's it's a bigger point of like, it's
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: not something that I love, it's something that he loved.
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: And and of course his whole library. The fact that
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: he was able to give her ten thousand books, it
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: was so excited And I get that way too.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you.
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: When someone is interested in something I like and then
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: starts asking me questions, I start pulling out references. Here,
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: you go do this. You need to do this, you
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: need to look at this. I mean that kind of
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: love and level of you're able to see me is
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: a beautiful thing, and it's through this art. Of course,
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: I don't think anyone understood his art and love through
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: his house. That seemed like a point of contention for
• 48:30
  Speaker 5: all of them, But she still understood what he was
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: getting towards.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And that is something you can understand something about
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: someone based on, especially if they're really passionate about a
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: certain character. For my dad, my dad loved to kill
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: Mocky Bird and he loved Atticus Finch, and he was
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: a lawyer and he represented people who couldn't afford to
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: represent themselves. And just knowing that, like you know something
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: about that person. And it was kind of like funny
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: sad to me of the where she went to college
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: and she's like, I never take English again because her
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: father was trying so hard to live vicariously through her.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: My dad was kind of the same, but I was like, no,
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: I'm never going to be a teacher, and so I
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: shut it down, I guess, but.
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: I connected with that as well.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: Something else I did find interesting is which we've been
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: talking about but I thought it was interesting that not
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: only does this book examine memory and the failings of
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: memory or how it can get recontextualized, it also talks
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: about recontextualizing art and mistranslating art. There's a couple of
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: examples she gives where she talks about like I think
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: this is a mistranslation, like from French to English or whatever.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: Are her father using Albert Camus and his thoughts on suicide,
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: but ultimately the thoughts on suicide it's absurd, like choosing,
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: picking and choosing and recontextualizing happening.
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: Not only in memory and in our real.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: Lives, but also in art that we do consume, which
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: does inform our real lives, which.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: I thought was really interesting.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: And then one of the things that I think we
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: should come back and talk about later is the power
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: of images, because that's not necessarily discussed in this but
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: it is a part by nature of it being a
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: graphic novel. That's why most people, including Alison Bechdel, think
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: this has been the target of so many banning and
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: censorship efforts because it's I think she says something like
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: I guarantee you there's more things in there that have
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: way more gay.
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: Sex than this.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: But this is illustrated, this art and you can see it, right,
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: So that's why it made people so uncomfortable, which I
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: think is worth returning to.
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: In the future.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: And then I just I did want to talk briefly,
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, just to mention of this whole idea that's
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: present of Daedalus and Icarus of Acres flying two Coas's sun,
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: but Allison is kind of constantly making comparison to that.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: But Allison's father was there to catch her in her
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: memory of jumping off the diving board, which is I
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: thought it was really sweet and well done, and uh
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: it makes her you know, question, is there somebody to
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: catch him right, right? Or had he been like just
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: all these years waiting right?
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: But yeah, it was really touching. It was touching.
• 51:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And you know, she actually did talk about the
• 51:29
  Speaker 5: fact that the mistranslation and learning new things after the
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: book was released, and she talked about the fact that
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: she's like, oh, Ill, you know, there's so many things
• 51:37
  Speaker 5: that I'm like, oh, that makes more sense, and yeah,
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: it would have changed that perspective of the book had
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: I known these things. But I'm glad I didn't because
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: it makes it more honest from me, but I felt
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: like that was such an interesting idea. It's like, there's
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: so many things that we don't know behind pictures.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: You and I've talked about this before, and I've talked
• 51:54
  Speaker 5: about it with so many people recently that we don't
• 51:56
  Speaker 5: know what has happened through the generations of our families,
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: so we don't see the true stories, and oftentimes because
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: they're our parents or were connected with them on an
• 52:04
  Speaker 5: everyday basis, we don't think to ask. We just assume
• 52:07
  Speaker 5: we know. And then when people start asking and you're like, oh,
• 52:10
  Speaker 5: I didn't know that about you what? It changes so
• 52:14
  Speaker 5: much perspective later on, It could change the whole book
• 52:17
  Speaker 5: in general, the whole novel in general, to like, I
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: wouldn't want to change that, but there's definitely new things
• 52:23
  Speaker 5: that I have learned that I'm like, wow, you know,
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: and I feel like that's something to note because of course,
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: as we go into any kind of conversation about our
• 52:32
  Speaker 5: own past and our families past, there's so much that
• 52:34
  Speaker 5: we mess out and how things get mistranslated or even
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: just left out altogether.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: And I think it makes it interesting.
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. I hadn't
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: read that from her, but that is that is really interesting. Well,
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: clearly a lot to talk about. Very highly recommend this
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: book you have not read it, and as always we
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: love getting book recommendations from you. Listeners can send them
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: to our email. It is Stuff Media, Momstuff at iHeartMedia
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: dot com. You can find us on Instagram at Stuff
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: I've Never Told You, are on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: Thanks as always start a super producer, Christina, thank you
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: and thanks to you for listening Stuff I Never Told
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: You the direction of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: to favorite shows.