In 2021, Heaven by Marc Jacobs released a wildly popular collection dedicated to the Virgin Suicides, including a mesh top emblazoned with Dunst as Lux sullenly picking at a toffee apple. Three decades later, the story’s popularity is showing no signs of waning – if anything, it’s on the up. Today, both the film and the book are regarded as classics, with Coppola having pulled off the near-impossible feat of making a good page-to-screen adaptation. Six years after its publication, it was made into an ethereal film, famously directed by Sofia Coppola (her debut, in fact), starring Kirsten Dunst as Lux, the 14-year-old Lisbon sister, and soundtracked by Air. It received a limited release in April 2000 as Paramount Classics was afraid it would encourage ‘copycat’ teen suicides, before going on to achieve slightly more success after a wider release in May. It’s narrated by a ch orus of the neighbourhood’s boys – now men – who remain fascinated by the tragedy, decades on, and fruitlessly attempt to figure out what compelled them to end their lives. As the title suggests, the girls grow increasingly isolated by the actions of their draconian mother, and eventually all commit suicide. The story, now revered as a modern classic, follows the five Lisbon sisters living in a leafy Michigan suburb during the 1970s. Jeffrey Eugenides’ debut novel, The Virgin Suicides, was published 30 years ago this week, on 1 April 1993.
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