When reading a mystery, one might not expect to learn the fate of every main character in the first line of the first chapter. One might be put off by a novel with a plot that meanders toward an inevitable conclusion with narration coming from years after the events of the novel. It may seem unlikely for a book like that to maintain suspense throughout 250 pages, and even more unlikely that it would be a landmark of contemporary literature.
“The Virgin Suicides,” written by Jeffrey Eugenides in 1993, is one such novel, managing to keep tension through every page while constantly alluding to the tragic deaths of its main characters.
As the title suggests, “TVS” tackles the lives (and more importantly, deaths) of the Lisbon sisters, who live in 1970s suburban Michigan. The novel begins with the suicide of the youngest daughter, 13-year-old Cecelia, who impales herself on a fence post after jumping out of her bedroom window.
The rest of the book follows her four sisters, ages 14-17, as they navigate high school. The story is told in the first person plural, an ever-present “we” that represents the neighborhood boys who become fixated on the mythology surrounding the Lisbon sisters.
The boys puzzle over the plight of the sisters, probing into their love lives, Christian background and environmental advocacy in an attempt to understand their suicides. What pushes the girls to suicide is the central mystery of the novel, one that never reaches a clear-cut conclusion. The lack of a definitive answer reinforces the sense that the reader is merely an observer to a private tragedy, and that pretending to understand such a waste of life would be arrogant.
The book was made into a movie that was released in 1999. Directed by Sophia Coppola and starring Kirsten Dunst, the movie embraces the ’70s aesthetic while lightening up on the intense melancholy of the novel. With warm hazy lighting and a moody score, the movie does justice to its source material while solidifying itself as a separate and respectable interpretation.
For those looking to take AP Literature, “The Virgin Suicides” can serve as an introduction to one of the more challening novels on the syllabus, “Middlesex,” also written by Eugenides. Both novels have a tendency to dive deeply into matters that seem tangentially related to the main plot, so getting acclimated with the style of his prose could be beneficial.
A copy of The Virgin Suicides can be found at the Chapel Hill Public Library or online for less than $4. Photo courtesy of Warner Books
