One of her ten top cliques in fiction, as shared at the Guardian:The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey EugenidesRead about the other entries on the list.
Eugenides presents the reader with two distinct groups – the collective voice of the narrators, a group of teenage boys in suburban Detroit, and the objects of their obsessive fascination: the beautiful, doomed Lisbon sisters, whose tragic fate is revealed in the opening line. The Lisbons are the most enduring example of the familial clique. They are connected not only by blood, but by increasing isolation from their peers, voiceless victims of an overprotective, evangelical Catholic mother. The boys observe from afar, haunted by their memories even in middle age. It’s their shared requiem that lingers.
The Virgin Suicides is among David Nicholls's five favorite coming-of-age stories, Julia Fierro's thirteen most dysfunctional parents in literature, Rosa Rankin-Gee's ten top novellas about love, Kate Finnigan's top ten fictional fashion icons, Patrick Ness's top ten "unsuitable" books for teenagers, Cathy Cassidy's top ten stories about sisters.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
