Book Talk | The Virgin Suicides

 Last year, my favorite read of 2023 was Middlesex, a book from Jeffery Eugenides about the effect of a mutated gene on three generations of a Greek family, causing momentous changes in the protagonist's life. It's a really insightful and interesting read that I gobbled up pretty quickly. If you're interested in learning about that, you can find that book talk here!

Anyway, I knew that I would have to read Jeffrey's other works at some point and this past month was the month. Here's my full book talk on Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.

About the Author

Jeffrey Ken Eugenides is an American novelist and short story writer who has written numerous short stories, essays, and a few novels including The Virgin Suicides, Middlesex, and The Marriage Plot. In 2018, Eugenides joined New York University's Creative Writing Program as a tenured full professor and the Lewis and Loretta Glucksman Professor in American Letters. Eugenides has been inducted into The American Academy of Arts and Letters and The American Academy of Arts and Science. 

 

 About the Book 

The shocking thing about the girls was how nearly normal they seemed when their mother let them out for the one and only date of their lives. Twenty years on, their enigmatic personalities are embalmed in the memories of the boys who worshiped them and who now recall their shared adolescence: the brassiere draped over a crucifix belonging to the promiscuous Lux; the sisters' breathtaking appearance on the night of the dance; and the sultry, sleepy street across which they watched a family disintegrate and fragile lives disappear.

 

Book Talk

 Now when talking about suicide, we usually get the point of view from the person committing the suicide or from the perspective of a close loved-one. However, in The Virgin Suicides, the viewpoint is entirely from the neighborhood boys who have a crush on the girls. This is a unique way to show such a heavy topic, because the audience and the neighbors know the same amount of information. In the end, we don't really ever find out the true reasons why the girls committed suicide, we just understand it from the surface level and that's all we'll ever know, just like in real life.

Now having this story told from only the neighbors is also what I think is where this book kind of lacks. There are long, and I'm talking loooonnnng, paragraphs that go on for a page or two with no break. There is hardly any dialogue or thoughts being thrown out that we would normally get if we were getting a story from the main character, or characters, that the story focuses on. Thus, makes the story kind of feel like it's drowning on, which you don't want to feel while you're reading. 

 Through the long winded paragraphs, there is a lot of detail about what the neighbors witness over a year of paying close attention to the girls. We get a lot of insight into who the Lisbon girls are, what they like, how they act, but never how they truly feel. The reader is also given details on the parents of the girls and how they are treating their daughters from an outsiders perspective. So we are still able to get those details, even though we never really fully undertsand the characters we're looking at in this book.

After reading Middlesex, I had high expectations for The Virgin Suicides. Overall, it's not my favorite book. I did end up watching the movie that came out in 1999, and I actually enjoyed it better, becuase I feel that when we are focusing on characters that are told from a different point of view, it comes out better when it can visually be seen, at least in my opinion. 

 Until next time, Happy reading!