The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

This is a book I finished just last week although it was originally published in 1993. Some of you may be more familiar with Sophia Coppola's 1999 movie version of the book staring Kirsten Dunst as Lux. I myself have not seen the movie although my husband, Rusty, says it is very good. So this will be a review solely on the book untainted by the movie variation.

Jeffrey Eugenides is a favorite author of mine. I adored his second book Middlesex. I may, one day, do a full review of Middlesex here but it's been a number of years since I've read it and would probably have to go back and reread it to do it justice. Anyhoo, Eugenides has a unique ability to write for/about teenage girls. Having never been a teenage girl (I'm assuming) I am curious as to how he came across this ability and would love to ask him someday. I myself have been a teenage girl and couldn't convey the confusion and turmoil that comes along with teen girlhood better than he. The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex both have a lot of confusion and turmoil.

Suicides is the story of five teenage sisters in the late 1970's living in an upscale Detroit suburb with their strict and conservative Catholic parents. The girls live a somewhat cloistered and protected life, their only friends being each other. They are beautiful, normal teenage girls listening to music and sharing confidences. Until the youngest sister attempts to kill herself. Believe me, dear readers, there are no spoilers here. Eugenides lays the suicides out very early on (as with the title of the novel itself) making the ultimate fate of the girls no secret. The tension and suspense of the novel comes from the question of what leads the girls to take the drastic step of ending their lives.

This is exactly what the narrator of the novel is trying to discover. The narrator is a neighborhood boy - or boys possibly - who, later in life, try to put together the mystery of the girls lives and deaths. The narrator is always an outside observer, never a part of the action, always just off stage. Obsessed with the girls beauty and mystery in childhood, the narrator's obsession continues into adulthood when he tries to put the pieces of the story together through interviews and research.

I found this novel charming - both ethereal and teen angsty (is that a word?) at the same time. I like how Eugenides never clearly defines exactly why the girls are so unhappy. They are unhappy merely for the fact of being teen girls. After the youngest sister's first attempted suicide, the doctor in the hospital remarks that she isn't old enough yet to know how bad life gets. The girl replies, "Obviously, doctor, you've never been a thirteen year old girl."

The novel does get a little tedious at times with Eugenides' constant descriptions of the girls' isolation. But his text is so dreamy and beautiful that I'll let it pass. It's no wonder Coppola chose to create a movie from this book. Coppola is a big fan of the dreamy, little-girl-lost motif and this book is heavy on that front.

It is here that I would like to introduce my rating system. Everyone likes things tied up in neat, idiot proof little bows, including their reviews. So that's what I am going to use - bows. Clever, I know.

I give The Virgin Suicides, my debut review, four bows. The story was engaging and beautifully written and the characters were quite sympathetic. All except Trip Fontaine, one of the sister's love interests, whom you will want to die in a fire. Believe me, you'll know what I'm talking about if you read the book.

Let me know what you thought of the book. Until then, happy reading!