The Virgin Suicides

Paperback, 224 pages

Published Oct. 7, 2002 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.

ISBN:
978-0-7475-6059-3
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The Lisbons are a Catholic family living in Grosse Pointe, Michigan in the 1970s. The father, Ronald, is a math teacher at a private school and the mother is a homemaker. The family has five daughters: 13-year-old Cecilia, 14-year-old Lux, 15-year-old Bonnie, 16-year-old Mary, and 17-year-old Therese.

Their lives change dramatically within one summer when Cecilia, a stoic and astute girl described as an "outsider", attempts suicide by cutting her wrists. A few weeks later, the girls throw a chaperoned party, during which Cecilia jumps from their second story window and dies, impaled by a fence post.

The cause of Cecilia's suicide and its after-effects on the family are popular subjects of neighborhood gossip. The mystique of the Lisbon girls operates also for the neighborhood boys, the narrators of the novel.

Lux begins a romance with local heartthrob Trip Fontaine. Trip negotiates with the overprotective Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon to …

7 editions

Subjects

  • Modern fiction
  • Fiction