In 1993, Jeffrey Eugenides released his debut novel, The Virgin Suicides, to widespread critical acclaim. Set in Grosse Pointe, Mich., during the 1970s, The Virgin Suicides is told via the first-person voices of teenage boys fascinated by the local Lisbon family. The Lisbons have five girls, ages 13 to 17, with a homemaker mother and Catholic father who is also the high school math teacher. When the youngest Lisbon girl commits suicide, their father becomes increasingly overbearing with his remaining daughters. Eventually the girls are all withdrawn from school and forced to stay home, becoming even more mysterious to the watching boys.
In 1999, Sofia Coppola directed an adaptation of The Virgin Suicides starring James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst and Josh Hartnett. It was Sofia Coppola's directorial debut. Eugenides has since written Middlesex (2002), winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; The Marriage Plot (2011); and Fresh Complaint (2017), a short story collection. On October 2, Picador will publish a 25th-anniversary edition of The Virgin Suicides with a new introduction by Emma Cline ($17, 9781250303547). --Tobias Mutter
