In my head, I think I often merged and jumbled together The Virgin Suicides and The Vagina Monologues from similar sounding titles. I was only six when The Virgin Suicides was published in 1993, and so learning of it in later years it was somewhat shrouded with a vague familiarity, but not much knowledge.

In August, I finished reading The Friend by Sigrid Nunez, and my reward was to buy more books, obviously. Wandering around a small Waterstones, I saw a stack of The Virgin Suicides on a table of recommended reads. The cover caught my eye and the blurb sounded enticing. I also liked that they were recommending older books and not just the latest releases. Having left it for a few days, I was still thinking about it, and so I returned a bought a copy.

I finished reading it a few days ago and I’ve been mulling over my thoughts…

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

The premise is (almost*) as accurate and sad as it sounds. Five sisters – Cecelia, Lux, Mary, Bonnie and Therese all die by suicide, leaving their peers with a long-held obsession with the mysterious Lisbon family. The first to die is Cecelia, and the novel centres largely around the aftermath of her death. Lux, the eldest daughter exhibits increasingly rebellious behaviour against Mrs Lisbon’s strict rules, and the house begins to fall into derelict disrepair. *I say almost accurate, because Lux is the only sister who does not die a virgin.

At school, the sisters are an enigma to any and all who encounter them. They are unknowable, which only fuels the local boys’ desires and hungry imaginations. Told as a collective voice, decades later, now middle-aged men, they return to any evidence and eye witnesses they can find, compiling an investigation to try and determine why the girls took their own lives.

Unreliable Sources

Unreliability sits at the heart of the novel. Not only are the men unreliable narrators, it seems nearly everyone’s childhood memories differ, are at odds, or just plain wrong. Reports from those rare individuals who are granted access to the house serve to debunk myths or start new urban legends. Neither in life nor in death, does the mystery surrounding the girls become any clearer. Starved of access to each other, the longings and desires on both sides heighten and intensify. The girls range wildly in the boys eyes from being wholly unattractive to the hottest girls in school, and this remains the case when re-examining old photographs. The aloofness of the sisters, sitting on the fringes of the student ecosystem, makes them only more desirable.

Modern Gothic Literature

The Virgin Suicides has all the markings of a piece of modern gothic literature. Elements that stood out to me:

Big creepy house, that is itself a character in the book – tick
Purity vs impurity, virgins, sexual longing for female flesh – tick
Otherness – tick
Male voyeurism and obsession – tick
Overbearing governance and religion – tick

I would have loved to have studied this book at university and taken a real deep dive into the themes, imagery and symbolism! I can totally understand why it is marked out as a modern classic.

A Sensory Read

Often I would describe the book as having a grubbiness to it. There is a visceral physicality to the story, and to the Lisbon sisters. The smell and stench of the house and of teenage bodies. The texture of fabrics and haze of cigarette smoke. The taste of chapstick and liquor. Swarming insects crunch as they’re trodden underfoot. Music becomes a lifeline of expression and communication.

My Final Thoughts

As I’ve mulled over the book, the more I have grown to appreciate it. I began the book very slowly, reading in such small increments that I wasn’t really getting anywhere with it. I forced myself to take some proper reading time, to read at least fifty pages in a sitting rather than the 10 or so I had up till then managed. That made all the difference. Once I was properly immersed (and feeling grubby!) I really wanted to continue. It has been a valuable lesson for me in rediscovering some semblance of an attention span when reading. It had such a noticeable positive impact on my overall impression of the book.

I do wish I had gotten to know all of the girls in more detail. Bonnie, Mary and Therese don’t feature as prominently. I am sure this is by design. It keeps the girls from being knowable, and also forms their singular mysterious mass.

For me the biggest recurring thought I was screaming into the void while reading, was: ‘WHAT ABOUT THE PARENTS??!!’ The lack of punishment, consequence, investigation… I know that it all feeds into the themes the book is exploring, and makes it all the more powerful for how let down the girls are by the adults in their lives… but it didn’t stop my outrage. This would be a modern day case study in safeguarding children, and I suppose, this is the exact point Eugenides is making. There really is so much more I could say, it is a brilliant study piece.