The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice. Find a quote from page 56.
Check out the links for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Participants don't select their favorite, coolest, or most intellectual books, they just use the one they are currently reading. This is the book I'm reading right now---
Book Title: The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
"On the morning the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide---it was Mary this time, and sleeping pills, like Therese---the two paramedics arrived at the house knowing exactly where the knife drawer was, and the gas oven, and the beam in the basement from which it was possible to tie a rope."Friday 56:
"As soon as she had permission, Cecelia made for the stairs. She kept her face to the floor, moving in her personal oblivion, her sunflower eyes fixed on the predicament of her life we would never understand." (Page 27)Comment: Not a very cheery topic, huh? Surprisingly the book isn't really about suicide, though all the Lisbon sisters do kill themselves, as we see in the foreshadowing in the very first line of the book. It is really a a coming-of-age novel which gropes with the trials of adolescence and how we come to understand ourselves and other people, especially of the opposite sex. Written in 1993, this book has been around for a while. I liked Eugenides' Middlesex a lot and heard this one was very good, too. My husband and I listened to the audiobook together on a trip home from California. I wanted to talk about the book as soon as we finished it, so I was glad he listened, too. It is a very unique book. The narrator, who we come to understand is one of many neighborhood boys, refers to "we" as he tells the story of the life and death of the Lisbon sisters. I became obsessed with wanting to know who "we" referred to. Eugenides' writing is simply luminous. Have you read this book? What did you think of it?
