Chapter 1:9
Chapter 2:45
Chapter 3:67
Chapter 4, 183
Chapter 5, 281

Commentary on the work 323
Author's Chronology 339

Why did they commit suicide? - Rumors gathered one by one through the eyes of the 'boys'

The speakers of this work are an unspecified number of neighborhood boys, referred to simply as “we.”
These boys, who are meddling and sexually curious, each harbor a yearning for the Lizburn sisters.
The story begins as adults embark on an investigation to uncover the reasons behind the suicides of the Lizburn sisters, but they are forced to explore various perspectives on the truth, with no one person claiming to have the truth.
Without revealing the specific reasons, Eugenides clearly shows the differences in perspectives between the older generation represented by "parents," the mass media, and the boys themselves, leading the readers to discover the reasons for this.
The thinking of the older generation can be summarized in one word:
“Our parents attributed it to the music we listened to, our atheism, or our moral laxity in terms of sex, which we hadn’t even tried yet.” Most of the people in this neighborhood, including the Lisburn family, are Catholic.
However, Mrs. Lisburn alone forces her daughters to live a Puritan lifestyle, almost to the point of being Mormon.


The Lisburn sisters were only allowed to watch shows that their mother had pre-screened in the TV Guide and deemed safe to watch, were only allowed to read books that had been approved for safety, were not allowed to wear revealing clothes, and were forbidden from associating with boys or riding in cars with them.
As Lux said, “It was the only way to get out of the house,” they had no choice but to commit suicide, not to die, but to escape from the house.
The mass media perspective is presented by Linda Pearl, a trainee reporter for a local newspaper.
Pearl serializes articles that sensationalize Cecilia's death in order to advance her career.
At first, they lumped together Sicilia's death as a "teenage suicide" and misled the Lisburn sisters into thinking they were into black magic or satanism. After all the Lisburn sisters committed suicide, they spread the "copycat suicide theory" that the sisters had followed in Sicilia's footsteps.
And because of her article, the deaths of the Lizburn sisters even received attention from television stations.
However, the author describes this media interest in an extremely cynical tone.


“Reporters gradually began to call the Lisburn sisters by their friendly names, and instead of interviewing medical experts, they went around gathering testimonies from local residents.
(……) Reporters increasingly moved away from the question of why the Lisbon sisters committed suicide.
Instead, we started talking about their hobbies and honors.
(……) Reporters would present new anecdotes and photos on the air every night, but what they found had nothing to do with the truth we knew, and it eventually felt like they were talking about someone other than the Lisbon sisters.” (p. 292)

Of course, we cannot say that there are only a few causes for the suicide of five lives, let alone one.
So the boys, who 'collected all the puzzle pieces but couldn't put it together', conclude their investigation with the following bittersweet reflection:


“All that matters is that we loved them, and that, though they never heard us call, and they never hear us call, we are still calling them out of this treehouse, with our thinning hair and rippling bellies, from the room where they went to be alone forever, where they committed a suicide deeper than death alone, where they will never find the pieces to complete the puzzle.” (p. 322)

The hazy memories of the 1970s baby boomers and their conflicts with the older generation.

Born in 1960, Jeffrey Eugenides was a member of the so-called "baby boomer" generation born after the war, and like the Lisburn sisters and the village boys, he spent his teenage years in the 1970s.
So, if you look closely at the work, you can see that there are elements hidden throughout that will evoke nostalgia for the baby boomer generation.
Examples include bell-bottoms, long hair, cork heels, marijuana, Trans Am sports cars, Pink Floyd, Yes, aviator sunglasses, and boots.
However, it should be noted that in addition to these elements, there were also elements that the older generation of the time viewed with disapproval, such as the anti-war movement, hippies, the black civil rights movement, the women's rights movement, freedom, the spirit of resistance, sexual liberation, rock and roll, and drugs.
In fact, the boys and girls in the novel were too young to think about or put into practice such things, yet the older generations projected their own prejudices onto them.
And the one who took this tendency to the extreme was Mrs. Lisburn, the mother of the Lisburn sisters.
However, Eugenides does not make any criticism of this in his work.
It only indirectly mourns the suicide of the five girls in a calm manner.


“The Virgin Suicide” raises awareness of suicide deep beneath its humorous surface.
The premise that one family member's suicide leads to another suicide within the home can sometimes be realistic, which makes it all the more chilling.
"Since this work begins with Celia's suicide, even if she couldn't be prevented, wasn't there a way to prevent the other sisters' suicides in advance? Even though this is a fictional novel, it's a question that lingers in my mind like a homework assignment." (From "Work Commentary")

Pathos and mourning for a childhood gone by

Detroit, the setting of 'Virgin Suicide', is also the author's hometown.
Detroit, which prospered from the 1920s onward, centered on the automobile industry, was the fourth most populous city in the United States by 1950.
However, the influx of black, European and Middle Eastern immigrants also led to large-scale race riots in 1967.
In the 1970s, when the oil crisis hit, American automobiles were pushed out by Japanese and German automobiles, and the Detroit automobile industry suffered a major blow.
The novel depicts in detail scenes of factories closing, companies going bankrupt, and people committing suicide after losing their jobs during the recession.
The work provides the following explanation for why Celia's suicide initially went unnoticed:

“With the massive layoffs in auto factories, hardly a day went by without news of desperate souls sinking beneath the waves of the recession.
There were also people who were found with their cars running in garages (…) Only cases of suicide together could make it into the newspapers, and even then, they were only three or four pages long. (p. 126)

As the local economy declined, many white people left, and with them, tax revenues and markets were greatly reduced.
Detroit, once prosperous, was ranked as the eighteenth most populous city in the United States in 2010, and some estimates suggest that more than 80 percent of its population is African American.
Once renowned as a hotbed of popular music, it is now, unfortunately, notorious for its high crime rate and severe social polarization.
The deaths of the Lisburn sisters coincided with a period when Detroit's economy was rapidly deteriorating.
Perhaps that is why the speaker feels as if the neighborhood has died along with the girls.
The nostalgia for the good old days that can never be returned overlaps with the Lisbon sisters.
In that sense, this novel is a sad lament about the five sisters who chose their own deaths, and at the same time, it can be said to be a pathos and mourning for their childhood that has passed.