The Virgin Suicides is a rather shocking novel about the suicides of five sisters in the Lisbon family living in suburban Michigan. The novel is narrated by one or more men who were teenagers at the time of the suicides which occurred in the 1970s. These men were infatuated with the Lisbon girls and have tried to piece together what really happened to them since the suicides happened twenty years earlier. The Lisbon girls had always been romanticized by the neighborhood boys while the Lisbon family had always seemed eccentric by the neighbors. When the youngest daughter, Cecilia, commits suicide on her second attempt, the reason for the suicide and the Lisbon family become the neighbor's main source of gossip. The remaining four girls become isolated and after 15-year old Lux misses her curfew following a dance, the Lux parents take the girls out of school and keep them in their home which slowly becomes derelict. Mrs. Lisbon is a strict Catholic and feels her daughters should not be exposed to any kind of pollution. No one visits the family and the Lisbons never leave the house. A year after Cecilia first attempted suicide, the remaining sisters successfully end their lives.
This was really a dark novel about a very shocking event. The novel is poignant and tragic and seems to reflect normal life in an American suburb until the unthinkable happens. Eugenides does an excellent job of portraying life at that time including what happens in the suburban environment. He talks at length about Dutch Elm disease and how healthy trees are destroyed because of the possible contamination of others. This seems to be a metaphor for what happened to the Lisbon sisters and the attitude of Mrs. Lisbon.
I really admire Eugenides writing and will probably be reading more of him. I read and really enjoyed his Pulitzer winning novel, Middlesex, a few years ago. I'll also be on the lookout for the 1999 movie version of The Virgin Suicides which starred Kirsten Dunst.
This was really a dark novel about a very shocking event. The novel is poignant and tragic and seems to reflect normal life in an American suburb until the unthinkable happens. Eugenides does an excellent job of portraying life at that time including what happens in the suburban environment. He talks at length about Dutch Elm disease and how healthy trees are destroyed because of the possible contamination of others. This seems to be a metaphor for what happened to the Lisbon sisters and the attitude of Mrs. Lisbon.
I really admire Eugenides writing and will probably be reading more of him. I read and really enjoyed his Pulitzer winning novel, Middlesex, a few years ago. I'll also be on the lookout for the 1999 movie version of The Virgin Suicides which starred Kirsten Dunst.
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