A Writer Speaks: Jeffrey Eugenides

So, you're an aspiring novelist, but haven't any slightest idea how to start your novel. Check out this lovely piece of advice from Mr. Jeffrey Eugenides, author of novels like The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex.

I tell my students that when you write, you should pretend you're writing the best letter you ever wrote to the smartest friend you have. That way, you'll never dumb things down. You won't have to explain things that don't need explaining. You'll assume an intimacy and a natural shorthand, which is good because readers are smart and don't wish to be condescended to. I think about the reader. I care about the reader. Not "audience." Not "readership." Just the reader.

- Jeffrey Eugenides in an interview with The Paris Review

Book Review: The Virgin Suicides

THE VIRGIN SUICIDES
Jeffrey Eugenides, 1993

Virgin suicide

What was that she cried?

No use in stayin'

On this holocaust ride

She gave me her cherry

She's my virgin suicide

The Virgin Suicides tackles the dilemma of angst-ridden adolescence, the downsides of being a girl, teenage sexuality, the anguish of yearning, and — of course — the complexity of suicide.

Set in '70s Michigan, The Virgin Suicides revolves around the Lisbon sisters, the sheltered daughters of a devout Catholic couple. The Lisbon girls become the center of intrigue and timeless fascination in an upper middle-class Grosse Pointe suburb, their tragedy haunting their neighbors through the years.