Alison Bechdel's Fun Home got its second review in the New York Times on Monday.  George Gene Gustines called it 'an engrossing memoir that does the graphic novel format proud. The tale -- about Ms. Bechdel's childhood, her father's death and their shared homosexuality -- is painfully honest and richly detailed in words and images.'

Writing in the even more prominent June 18th Book Review section of the Sunday Times, reviewer Sean Wilsey called Fun Home '...a pioneering work, pushing two genres (comics and memoirs) in multiple new directions, with panels that combine the detail and technical proficiency of R. Crumb with a seriousness, emotional complexity and innovation completely its own.' 

Above all Wilsey, who was inspired by the book to travel to Bechdel's home town of Beach Creek, Pa., adores the accuracy of her drawing and the rigorous honesty with which she recalls the painfully distant relationship with her father, a closeted gay man who was both an English teacher and an undertaker in the small town where she grew up and he lived his entire life.

The graphic novel that Fun Home resembles the most is Howard Cruse's excellent Stuck Rubber Baby, but Bechdel's memoir is more focused and, if anything, it has even more depth because it's about her father as much as it is about her, and their relationship as observed from her point of view is overwhelmingly poignant and cruelly tragic.  Although Fun Home is obviously not for every audience, it is one of the very best graphic novel releases of 2006 or any other year and retailers should take advantage of these extremely positive reviews to interest potential readers in this superb memoir.