I raved so much about Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex that I was given The Virgin Suicides for my birthday. I finished this book months ago, and I’m not quite sure why it took so long to get around to posting about it. I also haven’t seen the movie yet (directed by Sofia Coppola). But I digress.
The Virgin Suicides is a great book. Like Middlesex, the city of Detroit is featured prominently in the novel. This time, the action takes place in a suburb during an eventful summer in the 1970’s, the year of the suicides. A group of men who lived in the neighborhood look back to the year when the five beautiful sisters who lived on their block decided to kill themselves - one at a time. As bleak as that sounds, the novel is funny in parts. However, it mostly sets a fantastically gloomy mood that it sustains almost throughout. You know what’s going to happen, it says so right on the cover. The genius of the book is that it holds your interest going in (and keeps it) even though five girls are going to die in relatively unspectacular ways before you are done . You try it.
The book is about lost innocence, for the girls, obviously, but also for the boys, Detroit, and our Nation as a whole. While the girls are busy killing themselves, people of different colors are moving into the neighborhood, the Detroit automakers are faltering for the first time, environmental damages occur due to development, the kindly local mob boss is nabbed - things are changing. The “faith” of the parents doesn’t save any of the girls, nor does it keep the family together. The repressiveness of their faith in a changing world appears to have hastened the girls’ exits. There’s a lot going on, thematically.
It’s a great book. If you and enjoyed Middlesex, do yourself a favor and read this one, too. Of the two, I think that Middlesex is the better of the two, but that’s a pretty high bar.
December 30th, 2006 at 9:15 am
Good review, DJ. Loved both books. I read “The Virgin Suicides” when it first came out, so I grabbed “Middlesex” as soon as I could. Haven’t seen the movie, either.
Hope you had a good Christmas.
December 30th, 2006 at 11:31 pm
I’m not sure how I’ve missed the movie. I dig the Air soundtrack for it. Time to hit the video store.
January 1st, 2007 at 10:24 am
I just finished The Virgin Suicides last week. (Bought it because I too loved Middlesex.) I found it strange and disturbing - which are good things in a book but still, I was grateful for the bits of humour. (Maybe I shouldn’t have read it during the festive Christmas season??)
January 2nd, 2007 at 4:13 pm
You know, I read The Virgin Suicides when I was in the hospital having my hip replaced. A few months before I got fired and my world kind of fell apart. I thought it was a good book, but not a great book. But I had already seen (and subsequently fallen in love with) Coppola’s film approximately 17 times (that kiss, THAT KISS!). The soundtrack makes the movie.
But I LOVED “Middlesex” — and would highly, highly recommend that book to just about anyone. It’s a great novel.
January 2nd, 2007 at 6:36 pm
The movie is very, very good — I saw it quite a while back, but I remember my socks being pretty much rocked off by it. I’d say I should read the book, but in this case I think I’m better off not knowing the details; the ambiguity of the film was one of its most appealing traits.
January 3rd, 2007 at 9:15 am
Ragdoll: I think that that what I liked most about the book was the mood. Sofia Coppola seems to be a master of mood as well (based on Lost in Translation). Middlesex is so sprawling, it would have to be a mini-series. I hope that doesn’t happen.
Flav: It seems to be unanimous then. I need to find the movie.