Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8918 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-27
• Released on: 2009-04-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780312428815
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
Eugenides's tantalizing, macabre first novel begins with a suicide, the first of the five bizarre deaths of the teenage daughters in the Lisbon family; the rest of the work, set in the author's native Michigan in the early 1970s, is a backward-looking quest as the male narrator and his nosy, horny pals describe how they strove to understand the odd clan of this first chapter, which appeared in the Paris Review , where it won the 1991 Aga Khan Prize for fiction. The sensationalism of the subject matter (based loosely on a factual account) may be off-putting to some readers, but Eugenides's voice is so fresh and compelling, his powers of observation so startling and acute, that most will be mesmerized. The title derives from a song by the fictional rock band Cruel Crux, a favorite of the Lisbon daughter Lux--who, unlike her sisters Therese, Mary, Bonnie and Cecilia, is anything but a virgin by the tale's end. Her mother forces Lux to burn the album along with others she considers dangerously provocative. Mr. Lisbon, a mild-mannered high school math teacher, is driven to resign by parents who believe his control of their children may be as deficient as his control of his own brood. Eugenides risks sounding sophomoric in his attempt to convey the immaturity of high-school boys; while initially somewhat discomfiting, the narrator's voice (representing the collective memories of the group) acquires the ring of authenticity. The author is equally convincing when he describes the older locals' reactions to the suicide attempts. Under the narrator's goofy, posturing banter are some hard truths: mortality is a fact of life; teenage girls are more attracted to brawn than to brains (contrary to the testimony of the narrator's male relatives). This is an auspicious debut from an imaginative and talented writer. Literary Guild selection.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Eugenides's remarkable first novel opens on a startling note: "On the morning the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide... the two paramedics arrived at the house knowing exactly where the knife drawer was, and the gas oven, and the beam in the basement from which it was possible to tie a rope." What follows is not, however, a horror novel, but a finely crafted work of literary if slightly macabre imagination. In an unnamed town in the slightly distant past, detailed in such precise and limpid prose that readers will surely feel that they grew up there, Cecilia--the youngest and most obviously wacky of the luscious Lisbon girls--finally succeeds in taking her own life. As the confused neighbors watch rather helplessly, the remaining sisters become isolated and unhinged, ending it all in a spectacular multiple suicide anticipated from the first page. Eugenides's engrossing writing style keeps one reading despite a creepy feeling that one shouldn't be enjoying it so much. A black, glittering novel that won't be to everyone's taste but must be tried by readers looking for something different. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/92.
- Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
Debut novelist Eugenides is a heavyweight: proof of it is in nearly every pitch-perfect sentence of this startlingly and very good book. A group of teenage boys in a Detroit suburb have come under the siren spell of a group of like-aged sisters, the Lisbon girls, the eldest of whom, Cecilia, has killed herself by jumping out a bedroom window onto a fence. Shocked and dislocated by the fact of young, willful death, the boys are increasingly fascinated as the always strict and secretive Lisbon family goes into a kind of cold storage (the other girls eventually withdraw from school), and the house is let go into decrepitude (the boys, using binoculars from up in a treehouse, can see that the other girls have turned Cecilia's bedroom into a shrine). To rescue the Lisbon girls becomes the boys' instinctive obsession - and an accepted invitation to the prom almost accomplishes this. But one sister, Lux, has turned promiscuous - dooming her and her sisters' chances for freedom thereafter. Left to them all is death only. Eugenides, meanwhile, writes just about as well as anyone in recent memory has about male teenage desire, mythologizing, and half-rational thought: one unforgettable scene has the boys and the Lisbon girls communicating on the phone by playing certain popular songs close to the receiver for each other, third-party messages heartbreakingly personalized. The boys narrate the story together like a chorus, moving around in time, ever-haunted, in prose that is sinuous, untricky, yet polished. They come to recognize that the Lisbon girls mean life and death simultaneously - and that they will never get over having got to know this so young. Maybe the most eccentrically successful, genuinely lyrical first novel since William Wharton's Birdy. Not to be missed. (Kirkus Reviews)

Wry and wistful, melancholy yet flecked with a dark thread of humour, Eugenides's novel is a remarkable debut to say the very least. The protagonists of the title are a group of adolescent sisters who kill themselves, one after the other, in a Seventies summer that stays immaculately preserved in the memories of the young boys who hero-worshipped these elusive creatures from afar. Set in suburban America, it's a bizarre story and one that in lesser hands could easily have tumbled into the melodramatic, but everything is handled here with enviable fluidity and the potentially macabre becomes instead gently luminous. It's told retrospectively and collectively by all the boys, represented with a single voice as they look back at their youth two decades on and remember the fascination that the Lisbon sisters exerted over their prosaic lives, endowing everything with a touch of mystery. As they piece together their story from fragments of information presented in the form of exhibits, the lives of these girls become almost a touchstone of youth, a melange of memory distilled into a single bright image. Virtually imprisoned inside their claustrophobic home, not by malice but by sheer ignorance, the sisters find different ways to assert their individuality and Eugenides's description of the ball, their only date, is heartbreakingly poignant in the way it depicts the quartet grabbing every moment of delicious freedom like drowning swimmers gasping for air. Despite the sad subject there are many humorous touches like the image of the brassiere casually draped over the crucifix, but one of the book's most moving moments comes near the end when, desperate for contact and slowly sinking into their final spiralling despair, the girls play snatches of plaintive songs down the phone, the boys responding with cheerful anthems of teenage hope they intend as salve to the girls' loneliness. Beautifully written and intensely poetic in style, this novel may be an acquired taste for some but no one could deny the power of imagination necessary to conjure this haunting vision of a family slowly torn apart by the spectre of suicide. (Kirkus UK)

Customer Reviews

Haunting and compelling...
Wow. What a fabulous, page-turning, fascinating book! It's been two years since I saw the movie, but from what I can remember, the movie doesn't do this book justice. Maybe it is the unique style of the narrative that made me love it so, or the sweet obsession of the narrators...I don't know what exactly, but The Virgin Suicides was simply wonderful despite the morbid subject.

Set in 1970s suburbia, The Virgin Suicides tells the story of the Lisbon family from the point of view of a group of boys living in the same neighborhood. Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon are both sort of boring and normal, but their five daughters, Therese, Mary, Bonnie, Lux and Cecilia are exotic and mysterious...so different from their parents, it's hard to imagine how it happened. The story opens with the suicide of Mary, the last in the "year of the suicides" of the five sisters. From there, the story starts at the beginning as seen through the eyes of the neighborhood boys and is compiled through heresay, interviews, diary entries, personal contact, and their avid spying. What is so unique about this story is since it is told from an outside perspective, the answers to many questions remain unanswered, only assumed.

The Virgin Suicides takes readers through a year in the life of the Lisbon sisters, their untimely demise, the speculations of the neighborhood, as well as the unraveling of the Lisbon family. A tender, lively story with the ending already known, but fascinating to see how it gets there. I was impressed over and over and highly recommend this profound, moving novel.

a novel that asks questions but gives no answers
If you read the "virgin suicides" expecting answers, explanations, or any kind of analysis on how 5 teenage sisters ended up commiting suicide, one after the other...you'll be disappointed. After you reach the last of the 250 very well written pages,you realise that Jeffrey Eugenides hasn't revealed anything more than you knew from page one: the only thing the reader knows is that the 5 blond, almost indistinguishable Lisbon sisters commit suicide one by one.

The story is told through the eyes and ears of the neighbourhood boys. Teenage boys who are obssessed with the Lisbon sisters and watch their lives and deaths (or what they know of their lives and deaths) step by step. So, in the end, all we get to know about this tragic story, is through these teenage boys' eyes. It's like we are watching the chorus in an ancient greek tragedy: the chorus watches from afar, feels sorrow and pain, but doesn't know or reveal much.

This fact of not knowing, of not understanding the whys and the hows of the story, adds an almost surreal quality to the book. Eugenides is a very gifted new author, and manages to create a great book, even though with the total absence of characterization (the 5 sisters are almost described as one single person)as well as the total absence of feeling or explanation, this could prove to be tricky. But he does it skillfully and in the end, this fact of not knowing adds to the book.

A very sad, mysterious, deeply moving novel, a novel where the reader has to read between the lines to feel and understand. My only complaint was the short length of the book, but all in all: I strongly recommend it

Unbelievably Different
The Virgin Suicides would seem to be just another tragic tale of American suburbia, but Eugenides transforms it into a unique masterpiece. For starters, the story of the five Lisbon suicides is told from the perspective of an adolescent boy who, along with his friends, is obsessed with the mysterious Lisbon sisters. This gives the book an interesting, and often humorous, perspective on growing up, but only adds to the mystery surrounding the Lisbon house, as the boys have little real information to relate to the reader. One sees the Lisbon house as a depressing place to live, but can never really know its inhabitants. Cecilia's suicide attempt starts the book, but one can never understand why everything surrounding the event is so nonchalant, as though it were a preordained event. Similarly, one never really gets to know the surviving Lisbon sisters; they are all one mold, differentiated by a few images presented in various chapters. With any other author, this lack of character development would be profoundly frustrating, but Eugenides makes it work. One comes to share the obsession the neighborhood boys have for the Lisbon sisters, and the obsession, combined with the mystery surrounding the girls, makes it difficult to put the book down. Eugenides is a brilliant writer, the book is almost flawless, and, at just under 250 pages, it can be read in a sitting. I cannot recommend this title enough.