The Virgin Suicides
Book, 1994 by Jeffrey Eugenides
Synopsis from Goodreads:
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. 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.
Movie, 1999 directed by Sophia Coppola
Features: Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett
Tagline: Beautiful, mysterious, haunting, invariably fatal. Just like life.
Quotation: When she jumped, she probably thought she could fly.
Did you read or see The Virgin Suicides? What did you think? Have you read the Oprah's Book Club selection, Middlesex, also by Jeffrey Eugenides?
I saw the movie before I read the book. I liked both (a little weird, but good). I recently bought Middlesex but haven't started it yet. The beginning makes it sound really interesting:
"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974."
