The Virgin Suicides by Jeffery Eugenides

I first read this novel at my first bookstore gig, Borders, back in 2005. Nothing has changed. No matter how many times, I read this novel, I come to the same conclusion: I don't get it.

I don't even know what it is I don't get. It is just the story of a group of five teenage sisters in the 1970s who through chance, genetics, circumstance or whathaveyou are all suicidal. By the end of the novel, none of them are alive. That's it, exactly what it says on the tin. But maybe it's the wistful almost distant way it's written, maybe it's the topic itself. I'm not even sure if I want this book to be about something more or something less.

The story is told through the eyes of a group of boys, personified by an anonymous first person plural narrator, who grew up in the same neighborhood as the Lisbon sisters. The writing takes places years and years after the girls' deaths. The 'evidence' they collected about the girls and their lives (most importantly, their deaths) is presented in a pseudo-detective sort of fashion, with evidence such as Exhibits numbers 1-98, witness and interviews with neighbors and people who knew the girls. It's a strange piece of voyeurism, honestly. The girls seem at times to be hyper aware of the fixation people have with them, other times its as if they retreat or simply don't care. It's as if understanding the Lisbon girls and why none of them chose to see her twenties becomes a metaphor for understanding the loss of innocence these men experience in their middle ages. Maybe it's sort of modern Greek tragedy. But where is the hubris? Where is the tragic, fatal flaw of the Lisbon girls? Maybe it's supposed to be about the death of the American dream personified by these suburban girls or specifically a "poignantly sharp and critical portrait of the suburban American life experienced by the baby boom generation," as Wikipedia suggests. I'm not sure.

And I have a feeling that like much like the narrator(s), I'm going to keep visiting this story again and again. I'm going to keep digging, keep searching for meaning, be it personal or universal in the girls' story. Because I can feel it in there, I just can't dig it out. Like the boys who spent their lives playing custodians, biographers, curators and keepers of the memories of the Lisbon girls, I too find I am haunted by the names and lives of Cecilia, Lux, Bonnie, Mary and Therese. Maybe one of these days, I'll be able to find whatever it is I'm looking for. As for now, I just don't know.

[Incidental note: This is one of the few times where I think I'm going to watch the movie to try to understand the book more. I've heard mixed reviews, but after all, it IS Sofia Coppola and I tend to enjoy her work.]