Book: The Virgin Suicides

Kate LaPlaca

Staff Writer

Behind the Suburban Curtain: The Revisit to the Tragic Tale of “The Virgin Suicides” by Jeffery Eugenides.

“The Virgin Suicides” is a novel that takes place in the summer of the 1970s in real-life suburbia. There were five sisters, who each died, one by one, leaving a bigger impact on the community with their deaths. The deaths of these sisters changed the trajectory of the neighborhood and, in particular, the teenage boys of the neighborhood forever. “The Virgin Suicides” by Jeffrey Eugenides, published in 1993 was his debut novel, where it retells the story not as facts but as memories from the boys, their obsessions, and the myths that come with gossip.

The book is a chilling coming-of-age novel, set in the Midwestern Suburbs in the 1970s. The novel is told from a compilation of the perspectives of the neighborhood boys, who have had obsessions with the five Lisbon Sisters – Cecilia, Lux, Bonnie, Mary, and Therese for decades.

The novel recounts each of the girls’ deaths which happened by suicide, one by one, following the youngest sister’s first death, Cecilia. The house they live in was repressive and strict due to the rules that their mother and father placed in line to hopefully protect them.  After the death of Cecilia, the already strict household takes on a militaristic style under the mother.

The boys of the neighborhood were always captivated by the girls and the mystery that each of them held, something they each wanted to get to know up close, but never had the opportunity to. Throughout the story, it shows the struggles of the girls from afar and the rebellion of Lux Lisbon as a last-ditch effort to lead a so-called normal life, something she will never be able to achieve.

The story is a mystery, but instead of it being solved in the end, the novel shows the memories of the boys later in life and how, due to them repressing their feelings at the time, and the way the community as a whole mythologizes the loss of the girls and the parents’ role.

Reading “The Virgin Suicides”, I had a feeling that I had never experienced in any other book; it felt like I was stepping into the memories of a whole community. I was drawn to the mystery of the book, sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting to find out what would happen next.

When I was in the first section of the book, I wanted answers to all the mysteries: why did Cecilia feel the need to kill herself, and why was their mother so repressive? Then I continued into the book, and I had a shift in what I was looking for when I was reading. I realized the reason the book was so addicting and eye-catching was because of the mystery, and that was what made the story, knowing that I will never know the answers to my questions.

The novel, in my opinion, is barely about the suicides of the girls, but instead it is about how people in the outside world view the issue. How the people in the surrounding community around the suicide struggle to make sense of the situation and how to deal with the loss in what some consider an unnatural way.

When I finished the book, the feeling I was left with was unease, but not in the way because the book felt unfinished, but really the contrary. I felt haunted about the mystery and how much was left unsaid and unexplained, saying how death and suicide never truly has a straight forward answer there are always different reasons.