The Virgin Suicides

Obviously, Doctor,” she said, “you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl.”

What are you doing

here, honey? You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets."

We could never understand why the girls cared so much about being mature, or why they felt compelled to compliment each other, but sometimes, after one of us had read a long portion of the diary out loud, we had to fight back the urge to hug one another or to tell each other how pretty we were.

"Obviously, Doctor," she said, "you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl."

She didn't say a word, but when they parted her hands they found the laminated picture of the Virgin Mary she held against her budding chest

She didn't say a word, but when they parted her hands they found the laminated picture of the Virgin Mary she held against her budding chest.

“Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy.”

his sallow complexion dying in sympathy with them; and his lost look of a man who realized that all this dying was going to be the only life he ever had

After a week without seeing her, he decided to take extraordinary measures

He began driving by the Lisbon house in hopes of getting a glimpse of her, or the consolation prize of a sister. Unlike us, Trip Fontaine never mixed up the Lisbon girls, but from the outset saw Lux as their shining pinnacle. He opened the windows of his Trans Am as he drove by, turning up his eight-track so that she might hear his favorite song in her bedroom. Other times, unable to control the riot in his gut, he floored the accelerator, leaving behind as a love token only the smell of burning rubber