C
If you know me, then you know this definitely wasn’t a book that I had thought to read myself. I don’t have a lot of award winning coming-of-age, teenage drama, or just general contemporary fiction on my shelves, because I am dumb, and a man. Which is probably why I was so easily engrossed in the tale of a small Michigan suburban family as told by the collective memories of dumb teenage boys.
The Michigan elements were so accurate and core to the setting that it wasn’t surprising at all to find out that the author was from the Detroit area. From the second page about the early summer season being marked by the cloud of fish flies that invade the town (they really do get everywhere and it’s as gross as you think it is), or the references to the Detroit race riots and declining automotive industry, or even just the mention of grocery store chains like Kroger, I felt a sort of nostalgia despite growing up over an hour away and nearly 30 years after the era this book is set in. These weren’t childhood experiences of mine (aside from the grocery stores), but it was enough for me to have an exact image in my mind while reading. Not that I needed that kind of familiarity to do so, however.
Jeffrey Eugenides has a powerful way with words. His prose is direct, and his descriptions meticulous, which leads to some sickening passages. And it works for the narrators. These aren’t hazy, half forgotten memories to these kids. They are vivid mental photos of a traumatic period and turning point in their lives. Of course, being memories of boys going through puberty and growing up in a “traditional” patriarchal environment, they weren’t really focusing on the right things that would’ve helped solve the mystery of “why did they do it?”
It’s no mystery who is dying in this story. From the opening, we are told it’s going to be every single Lisbon daughter. But the reasons why are more or less up to the reader to decide. There are plenty of theories offered and warning signs that were so obvious in hindsight that someone should’ve reacted to. And that’s the real depressing thing about this book. No one had the compassion or courage to try to do anything until it was far too late. The Lisbons shut themselves away from the world, the neighbors only did something if it affected their bottom line, and the boys just gawked and ogled. But it’s part of why the ending doesn’t feel as poignant to me as it seems it’s meant to be. They claim to have loved the Lisbon girls, but only twice took the initiative to make contact with them over the course of a year, and couldn’t remember more than their physical qualities and belongings. Their recollection and investigation into what happened is no more sincere than Ms. Perl’s piece of journalism.
There are a lot of different messages that one could get from this book. To me, it reads as a failure of society, and the moment we “come of age” is the moment we realize that the practices and lifestyle we revered as children is not sustainable. The Lisbon parents were the worst kind of helicopter parents, treating their children as objects to be preserved instead of people who need social interaction even before the first suicide. The rest of the town did the absolute bare minimum to address Cecelia’s suicide and even went so far as to basically shun the Lisbon family when they stopped taking care of themselves, then accepted the outside theories as to why five daughters in one family all killed themselves in their own community instead of having enough awareness of their own environment. The entire southeast Michigan region decayed both in its environment and its economy throughout the story as a result of actions taken well before the narrators were born. Not only did the Lisbon daughters die by the end of the story, but the town itself as well.
If you know me, then you know this definitely wasn’t a book that I had thought to read myself. I don’t have a lot of award winning coming-of-age, teenage drama, or just general contemporary fiction on my shelves, because I am dumb, and a man. Which is probably why I was so easily engrossed in the tale of a small Michigan suburban family as told by the collective memories of dumb teenage boys.
The Michigan elements were so accurate and core to the setting that it wasn’t surprising at all to find out that the author was from the Detroit area. From the second page about the early summer season being marked by the cloud of fish flies that invade the town (they really do get everywhere and it’s as gross as you think it is), or the references to the Detroit race riots and declining automotive industry, or even just the mention of grocery store chains like Kroger, I felt a sort of nostalgia despite growing up over an hour away and nearly 30 years after the era this book is set in. These weren’t childhood experiences of mine (aside from the grocery stores), but it was enough for me to have an exact image in my mind while reading. Not that I needed that kind of familiarity to do so, however.
Jeffrey Eugenides has a powerful way with words. His prose is direct, and his descriptions meticulous, which leads to some sickening passages. And it works for the narrators. These aren’t hazy, half forgotten memories to these kids. They are vivid mental photos of a traumatic period and turning point in their lives. Of course, being memories of boys going through puberty and growing up in a “traditional” patriarchal environment, they weren’t really focusing on the right things that would’ve helped solve the mystery of “why did they do it?”
It’s no mystery who is dying in this story. From the opening, we are told it’s going to be every single Lisbon daughter. But the reasons why are more or less up to the reader to decide. There are plenty of theories offered and warning signs that were so obvious in hindsight that someone should’ve reacted to. And that’s the real depressing thing about this book. No one had the compassion or courage to try to do anything until it was far too late. The Lisbons shut themselves away from the world, the neighbors only did something if it affected their bottom line, and the boys just gawked and ogled. But it’s part of why the ending doesn’t feel as poignant to me as it seems it’s meant to be. They claim to have loved the Lisbon girls, but only twice took the initiative to make contact with them over the course of a year, and couldn’t remember more than their physical qualities and belongings. Their recollection and investigation into what happened is no more sincere than Ms. Perl’s piece of journalism.
There are a lot of different messages that one could get from this book. To me, it reads as a failure of society, and the moment we “come of age” is the moment we realize that the practices and lifestyle we revered as children is not sustainable. The Lisbon parents were the worst kind of helicopter parents, treating their children as objects to be preserved instead of people who need social interaction even before the first suicide. The rest of the town did the absolute bare minimum to address Cecelia’s suicide and even went so far as to basically shun the Lisbon family when they stopped taking care of themselves, then accepted the outside theories as to why five daughters in one family all killed themselves in their own community instead of having enough awareness of their own environment. The entire southeast Michigan region decayed both in its environment and its economy throughout the story as a result of actions taken well before the narrators were born. Not only did the Lisbon daughters die by the end of the story, but the town itself as well.