Jeffrey Eugenides won the Pulitzer Prize for his second novel Middlesex in 2003. His first novel, The Virgin Suicides, (while being a critical success) did not gain mainstream notoriety until the 1999 film adaptation.
The Virgin Suicides is the story of the five Lisbon girls in a Michigan suburb in the 1970s. The story is seen through the eyes of neighborhood boys all admirers of the girls from afar. The setup/POV of this novel reminded me a little of the style of Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera. The Virgin Suicides is setup as an investigation of the mass suicides, complete with evidence, interviews of witnesses, and (naturally for a literary novel) many holes in the story unable to ever be solved.
Ultimately the story works much better on the page than on film. The disconnected, eerie quality of the writing was not flushed out enough on film. At one point the description of the Lisbon home is quite similar to past descriptions of Grey Gardens.
I would have liked the girls' identities to be more full-bodied and tailored to each sister. Other than Cecilia and Lux, the girls' personalities are very general and kind of seep together to create one character with three bodies.
The book, however, is a true testament that the "trouble in suburbia" theme never gets old. I'm sure some people may call it cliche after so many mediums taking on the subject (aka: American Beauty, Weeds, Desperate Housewives, Revolutionary Road), but I will never stop liking these kind of stories. I'm sure growing up in suburbia has something to do with it, but mostly I think the topic keeps from being cliche, because it keeps being true over and over and over again.
Grade: B
*Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award
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