RETROS

RETROS

RETROS

This extraordinary, 30-year-old debut is a technically innovative and deeply moving study of a family of young sisters

THE VIRGIN SUICIDES

by Jeffrey Eugenides (4th Estate £14.99, 256pp)

This extraordinary, 30-year-old debut is a technically innovative and deeply moving study of a family of young sisters and the group of boys who tried, but failed, to understand them.

The five Lisbon girls’ lives are restricted by their joyless, protective mother and ineffectual father, until Cecilia, the youngest at 13, kills herself.

School friends become obsessed with the remaining four sisters, who are forced to withdraw from the outside world until they, too, exert what power they have by killing themselves.

We know all this from the shocking start, but what unfolds is as much about the effect it had on the growing boys as the unfathomable reasons why it happened.

It’s 25 years since this coming-of-age story was published, yet it still feels fresh

SUMMER SISTERS

by Judy Blume (Sphere £9.99, 370pp)

It’s 25 years since this coming-of-age story was published, yet it still feels fresh.

It follows the unlikely friendship of Caitlin, the unconventional daughter of a wealthy, bohemian family, and Vix, a dutiful child constrained by her stressed family’s lack of money.

When Caitlin invites her to spend summers on Martha’s Vineyard, Vix is absorbed into her world and dazzled by it.

As the years progress they share secrets, make promises and meet boys — one of whom will change both their lives.

Blume, as ever, is superb at evoking the pain and pleasure of adolescence, the ways in which loyalty ebbs and flows, and the ending is touchingly bittersweet.

It’s the memoir of Humbert Humbert, who is obsessed with ‘nymphets’

LOLITA

by Vladimir Nabokov (Penguin Classics £16.99, 336pp)

Would Lolita be published today?

Almost certainly not, despite the fact it’s a brilliantly written, memorably disturbing story of power, lust, guilt and self-deception that’s also darkly funny.

It’s the memoir of Humbert Humbert, who is obsessed with ‘nymphets’ as a result of a thwarted childhood love affair.

Cynically, he marries his landlady to gain access to her 12-year-old daughter, Lolita

 When his wife dies, he kidnaps the child and embarks on a cross-country, sexually-charged odyssey that spirals into tragedy.

Humbert is both a monster and a self-deluder, but at the heart of it is Lolita, who, betrayed by everyone, shows no self-pity.

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