The narration could be described as polyphonic, to use literary and linguistic critic Mikhail Bakhtin’s words, yet the polyphony of voices and perspectives is undefined. It is grown men recounting their childhoods and their relationships they had with the Lisbon sisters. It details the brutal ways they killed themselves and also hints at a suicide pact the sisters made after Cecilia, the youngest Lisbon girl, died by suicide. It recounts the tragic lives and deaths of five young women ageing from 13 to 17.

When I reread the novel recently, I was instantly reminded of the discomfort I had first felt when I read it. I would argue that the concerns raised by readers and critics about the novel are not unwarranted. The novel has polarised reviews on Goodreads with many readers feeling perturbed by the male narration of the Lisbon sister’s deaths, the hyper-sexualisation of teenage girls, the manic pixie dream girl feel of the novel (albeit this notion was coined after Eugenides’ novel and was made popular after the 2009 film 500 Days of Summer), and the fetishism of dead white girls. It has captured readers since its release and was turned into a film in 1999 directed by Sofia Coppola staring Kirsten Dunst (as Lux Lisbon). It was received with critical acclaim and some reviewers at the time called his novel a modern Greek tragedy. The Virgin Suicides were first published in 1993 and it was Jeffrey Eugenides’ breakout debut novel. Book, The Virgin Suicides, sitting on a wooden table next to a cinnamon roll.

The virgin suicides eugenides