It’s Thursday — What Book is Your (Home) State… Michigan!

By Kristen on Feb 7, 2008 in 50 States 50 Books, Future Classics...?

The Columbia Spectator is doing a series, every Thursday, on “a list of 50 books that we think capture the essence of each state, all while telling a great story along the way.”

Have no fear, you did not somehow miss the states between Alabama and Michigan… The Columbia Spectator is not constrained by the concrete sequential formality of alphabetization — and, really, why should they be?! Don’t forget to guess the capitol…

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So, I am happy to present the state of my birth and childhood… Michigan! Personally, I would have chosen a short story by Hemingway, perhaps, but I was nevertheless thrilled to see Jeffery Eugenides as their (much more contemporary) choice. I would have chosen Middlesex, however, instead of The Virgin Suicides, simply because the sense of place — Detroit — is so powerful in his Pulitzer Prize winner. For a review of Middlesex, check out 1 More Chapter…

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However, The Virgin Suicides is really, really good. But not necessarily really, really Michigan. I intimately felt the roots of my paternal grandparents and my father when reading Middlesex. In my opinion, after spending 20 years of my life in Michigan, I think the choice should either embrace the complexity and frustrations of Detroit (Middlesex) or the pristine beauty of the northern woods (Hemingway).

Photo by thepentaxhammer

But, that’s simply my opinion… on to the Columbia Spector’s…

“Eugenides’ debut novel captures in one masterful stroke both the comfort and suffocation of the 1970’s northern suburbia. The unnamed narrator illuminates the comfort of routine and community in this the ice-bound hamlet, where “the snow fell every week and we shoveled our driveways into heaps higher than our cars… and old man Wilson sprang for his annual extravagant display: a twenty-foot snowman, with mechanized reindeer.” The very nature of The Virgin Suicides is the foregone conclusion of self-destruction and tragedy—the book opens with the revelation that all five Lisbon girls, the objects of our narrator’s affection, will commit suicide by the novel’s close. Yet the awkward tenderness of first love and the comforting rhythm of small-town life remain. In the end, we “are certain only of the insufficiency of explanation,” and for this the setting could not be more perfect—the sameness and numbing quality of the “elm-lined streets” and the beauty of a young boy’s childhood in the snow.”

Photo by prakope

So, even though I never thought about my own 1970’s childhood in suburban Michigan when reading it, I can’t fault the choice for any literary reasons. If you haven’t read it yet, give it a go…