First published in 1993, The Virgin Suicides announced the arrival of a major new American novelist. In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the five Lisbon sisters--beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the neighborhood boys--commit suicide one by one over the course of a single year. As the boys observe them from afar, transfixed, they piece together the mystery of the family's fatal melancholy, in this hypnotic and unforgettable novel of adolescent love, disquiet, and death. Jeffrey Eugenides evokes the emotions of youth with haunting sensitivity and dark humor and creates a coming-of-age story unlike any of our time. Adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola, The Virgin Suicides is a modern classic, a lyrical and timeless tale of sex and suicide that transforms and mythologizes suburban middle-American life.
Rants & Raves
I loved it. The narration is amazing. It's still unclear if there is only one or if its the group of boys who were obsessed with the Lisbon girls who narrated it.
It's dark and gloomy all throughout but I never expected to feel light after reading the novel. The eccentricity of the Lisbons intrigued me. I feel like I was one of the judgmental neighbors and the group of curious boys who wants to unfold the mystery of their deaths. The part where the Lisbon girls fully aware that they are being watched, exchanged songs with the boys on the phone and eventually, making them participate as "suicidal exhibitionists", is the darkest part of the novel. I read that part thrice. It is beautiful.
At the end of the novel, it felt like it was Eugenides himself who condemned the suicide of the girls. Saying that they acted like Gods; that they think too highly of themselves, they feel like they are too perfect to live in such a flawed world.
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