The five Lisbon sisters – beautiful, eccentric and, now, gone – had always been a point of obsession for the entire neighbourhood.

Although the boys that once loved them from afar have grown up, they remain determined to understand a tragedy that has defied explanation. The question persists – why did all five of the Lisbon girls take their own lives?

This mesmerising tale of sex and suicide that transforms and mythologises middle-American life announced the arrival of one of the greatest American novelists of the last thirty years.