In The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides tells the story of the five Lisbon sisters who kill themselves over the course of a single year, and along the way writes a mash note to youth and innocence, age and disappointment, and the Detroit of the 1970s at the moment when the city’s wealth and vitality begin to rot away.
Eugenides’ story is twee, and fantastic, and too cute by half until the last twenty pages, when he slips his knife under your breastbone, cuts out your heart, and holds it up, beating and bleeding, with a silent question: “This is life. Can you endure it?”
Peter Galen Massey 
Love this! This is the meat of this frustrating and intriguing novel.
Thanks! “The Virgin Suicides” seems to be a good example of something I’ve been rolling around in my head for awhile, which is that novels with problems — if they are new, or different, or interesting problems — can be more successful than novels without them. An imprecise example, Egan’s “A Visit from the Goon Squad” which I reviewed a few months ago. I spent most of my time reading “Suicides” thinking, I’ll be donating this when I’m done. The last twenty pages made me stick right back on the shelf. It was a keeper after all.
For those who saw the movie, the book will be a pleasant surprise. Despite it’s added vulgarness, it adds layers of depth to it that the movie doesn’t capture.
I recently watched “Lost in Translation” again which made me think Coppolla’s version of “Suicides” could be worthwhile. But it sounds like you might disagree. Have you seen both? And if a person, say me, liked one, do you think I might like the other?
I haven’t seen both, I’m sorry to say! But I have a lot of friends who, upon asking, liked both. Does that help?
Yes, it does. Thanks!