Introducing the Collins Modern Classics, a series featuring some of the most significant books of recent times, books that shed light on the human experience – classics which will endure for generations to come. 

 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 lyrical and timeless tale of sex and suicide that transforms and mythologizes suburban middle-American life announced the arrival of one of the greatest American novelists of the last thirty years. ‘