The Virgin Suicides

Investigations of Cecilia’s diary yielded no hints about the reasons for her death by suicide. The boys ran to a nearby friend’s house and sat on his roof to watch the scene, and they noticed how slowly the paramedics arrived, as if they already knew that Cecilia was dead. In the distance, they could faintly see and hear the city beyond the trees of their suburb. Their community hadn’t witnessed much death since World War II; the only deaths since then had been a few pet dogs. The cemetery workers had been on strike for months, but no one noticed until Cecilia died and her casket wasn’t buried in town but instead in a small cemetery in the city. Despite Cecilia’s oddness in life, the boys fell for her the same way they did the other Lisbon girls. When they analyzed her diary, they found that it was mainly full of positive notes, but one boy named David commented that her handwriting gave the impression that she was “out of touch with reality” (38).

They did notice that Cecilia rarely referred to herself as an individual, instead talking about what she and her sisters did together.