Gay memoir given
top honor by Time

Time magazine has named Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir the best book of the year. The magazine calls Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic this year's "unlikely literary success."

The memoir follows Bechdel coming of age in a small town and realizing that she and her father have something in common: They're both gay. "Forget genre and sexual orientation," Time wrote. "This is a masterpiece about two people who live in the same house but different worlds, and their mysterious debts to each other."

Bechdel has been writing her comic strip "Dykes to Watch Out For" since 1983, and it has since gone into syndication and been translated into several languages.

Fun Home was published this year by Houghton Mifflin, and The Advocate named it as its top pick for the year as well. (The Advocate)