A family affair

It may have been sat on my bookshelf for a while, I may have very much enjoyed reading Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex, and I may have been intending to read The Virgin Suicides for a while, but the main reason I picked it up yesterday was because it was small enough to fit in my coat pocket so I could take it on the bus. An excellent decision it turned out to be though, because it was brilliant.

Debut novels (or any others to be honest) rarely come out as accomplished as this. The writing is superlative, drawing the reader in from the first page and refusing to let go. The narration, unreliable yet with the sense of authenticity, unknown yet familiar, is splendid. It rings true, the details of what it is like to love and to lust, to watch and to worship, to be, in short, a teenager are what really brings the story and the characters to life. Told from observations and recollections twenty years in the past, it builds up a rich tapestry of life for not only the narrator and his associates, but also for the unfortunate Lisbon sisters, whether real or simply in their imagination.

The lyrical style and the objectification of Lux Lisbon, the sister most of the attention is given to – indeed, the described as the one who looked like what the narrator imagined them all to look like – reminds me of Lolita and certainly some of the themes are similar. The sense of innocence and longing, corruption and naivety conveyed throughout and encapsulating all of the main players in the story only help to build up the impending doom that one knows is coming from the start. The deaths of the girls may be a tragedy, but their short, sheltered lives are perhaps even more so. The changing opinions, forgotten rememberances and unreliable memories shift to create a dense pattern that both mythologises the events and makes them seem all the more real. A fantastically written, extremely absorbing treat of a book.

Book number: 21
Title: The Virgin Suicides
Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Category: Books that have been sat on my bookshelf for too long