The Virgin Suicides - Softcover

Eugenides, Jeffrey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312428812 ISBN 13: 9780312428815

Publisher: Picador USA, 2009

Synopsis

First published in 1993, The Virgin Suicides announced the arrival of a major new American novelist. In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the five Lisbon sisters--beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the neighborhood boys--commit suicide one by one over the course of a single year. As the boys observe them from afar, transfixed, they piece together the mystery of the family's fatal melancholy, in this hypnotic and unforgettable novel of adolescent love, disquiet, and death. Jeffrey Eugenides evokes the emotions of youth with haunting sensitivity and dark humor and creates a coming-of-age story unlike any of our time. Adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola, The Virgin Suicides is a modern classic, a lyrical and timeless tale of sex and suicide that transforms and mythologizes suburban middle-American life.

About this title

Review:

"A piercing first novel . . . lyrical and portentous." --The New York Times

"Mr. Eugenides is blessed with the storyteller's most magical gift, the ability to transform the mundane into the extraordinary." --The New York Times Book Review

"Arresting . . . uncannily evokes the wry voice of adolescence and a mixture of curiosity, lust, tenderness, morbidity, cynicism, and the naïveté surrounding these bizarre events." --The Wall Street Journal

"Picador's new paperback edition of The Virgin Suicides bears a modest white sleeve with an evocative cover image of lackadaisical teenagers lounging in a field of grass. The understatement of the binding is complemented by the rest of the package: Short of breadth, with larger than average type, it resembles nothing so much as what children refer to as a 'chapter book.' This sparsity of presentation is entirely appropriate, reflecting the marred innocence of the Lisbon girls themselves. The Virgin Suicides is a precious item, a timeless document of the eternal pangs of youth, a work which deserves to be savored and treasured and shared." --Michael Munro

Book Description:

** An American classic of our time, narrating the brief lives of the five entrancing Lisbon sisters, and now a major film for 2000

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador USA
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0312428812
• ISBN 13: 9780312428815
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 243