At once a funny parable about suburbia and a sad story of the casualties of it, the is a wonderful story about kids coming of age in modern, empty suburbia. As I found in Middlesex, Eugenides writes nimbly, weaving a compelling story told with grace and precision.
"We were amazed our parents permitted this, when lawn jobs usually justified calling the cops. But now Mr. Bates didn't scream o r try to get the truck's license plate, nor did Mrs. Bates, who had once wept when we set off firecrackers in her state-fair tulips - they said nothing, and our parents said nothing, so that we sensed how ancient they were, how accustomed to trauma, depressions, and wars. We realized that the version of the world they rendered for us was not the world they believed in, and that for all their care taking and bitching about crabgrass they didn't give a damn about lawns." Pg. 55
"It didn't matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls, but only that we had loved them, and that they hadn't heard us calling, still do not hear us, up here in the tree house, with our thinning hair and soft bellies, calling them out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time, alone in suicide, which is deeper than death, and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together." Pg. 249
Book 71
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