{"id":96924,"date":"2016-04-13T10:30:22","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T14:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=96924"},"modified":"2016-04-13T11:47:36","modified_gmt":"2016-04-13T15:47:36","slug":"jeffrey-eugenides-on-the-virgin-suicides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/13\/jeffrey-eugenides-on-the-virgin-suicides\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeffrey Eugenides on <i>The Virgin Suicides<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YNVxhXs_ATM\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Inspired by our famous Writers at Work interviews, \u201c<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/myfirsttime\" target=\"_blank\">My First Time<\/a><\/strong>\u201d is a series of short videos about how writers got their start. Created by the filmmakers Tom Bean, Casey Brooks, and Luke Poling, each video is a portrait of the artist as a beginner\u2014and a look at the creative process, in all its joy, abjection, delusion, and euphoria.<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s featured writer is <strong>Jeffrey Eugenides<\/strong>, who discusses his debut novel, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/us.macmillan.com\/thevirginsuicides\/jeffreyeugenides\" target=\"_blank\">The Virgin Suicides<\/a><\/em>, published in 1993. (An early installment appeared in the <em>Review<\/em>\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/back-issues\/117\" target=\"_blank\">Winter 1990<\/a> issue.) \u201cI wrote two hours every night, and on the weekends I would spend four hours,\u201d he says. \u201cEach book that you write, you swim a long way from the piers at a certain point\u2014you just don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen. If I learned anything with <em>The Virgin Suicides<\/em>, I just learned if you keep going, you\u2019ll figure out how to shape the thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Be sure to watch the previous interviews in the series:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/16\/ben-lerner-on-the-lichtenberg-figures\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Ben Lerner<\/a><\/strong> on <em>The Lichtenberg Figures<\/em>, his first collection<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/18\/katori-hall-on-hoodoo-love\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Katori Hall<\/a><\/strong> on\u00a0<em>Hoodoo Love<\/em>, her first play<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/17\/donald-antrim-on-elect-mr-robinson-for-a-better-world\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Donald Antrim<\/strong><\/a> on <i>Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World<\/i>, his first novel<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/20\/sheila-heti-on-the-middle-stories\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Sheila Heti<\/strong><\/a> on <em>The Middle Stories<\/em>, her first collection<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/18\/tao-lin-on-bed\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Tao Lin<\/strong><\/a> on <em>Bed<\/em>, his first collection<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/29\/christine-schutt-on-nightwork\/\"><strong>Christine Schutt<\/strong><\/a> on <em>Nightwork<\/em>, her first collection<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/tag\/branden-jacobs-jenkins\/\"><strong>Branden Jacobs-Jenkins<\/strong><\/a> on his play <em>Neighbors<\/em><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/27\/gabrielle-bell-on-her-book-of-series\/\"><strong>Gabrielle Bell<\/strong><\/a> on\u00a0<em>The Book of &#8230;<\/em> series, her early cartoons<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/26\/j-robert-lennon-on-the-light-of-the-falling-stars\/\"><strong>J. Robert Lennon<\/strong><\/a> on his debut novel, <em>The Light of Falling Stars<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Inspired by our famous Writers at Work interviews, \u201cMy First Time\u201d is a series of short videos about how writers got their start. Created by the filmmakers Tom Bean, Casey Brooks, and Luke Poling, each video is a portrait of the artist as a beginner\u2014and a look at the creative process, in all its joy, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18205],"tags":[689,15323,1132,3265,536,16232,18206,747,272,21940,7214,10113,75],"class_list":["post-96924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-first-time","tag-craft","tag-debut-novels","tag-interviews","tag-jeffrey-eugenides","tag-mfa","tag-michigan","tag-my-first-time","tag-novels","tag-publishing","tag-the-virgin-suicides","tag-videos","tag-writers-at-work","tag-writing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Watch: Jeffrey Eugenides on Writing \u201cThe Virgin Suicides\u201d<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For our My First Time video series, Eugenides recalls the process that led to his 1993 debut novel.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/13\/jeffrey-eugenides-on-the-virgin-suicides\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jeffrey Eugenides on The Virgin Suicides by Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"April 13, 2016 \u2013 Inspired by our famous Writers at Work interviews, \u201cMy First Time\u201d is a series of short videos about how writers got their start. 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