h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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The American born writer with the Greek name jumped straight in at the deep end with his first novel tackling the subject of teenage suicides. Why do so many teenagers commit suicide? Is it presure at school, at home, peer pressure, a genetic thing, something in the food we eat, or simply out of boredom with modern life? In this book 5 teenage sisters take the final step, each choosing her own unique method whilst friends look on helplessly and parents break down almost totally. It's a tricky subject to tackle in a first novel but here the author manages to pull it off, writing with humour and panache which strangely fits to the subject. I met Eugenides at a recent book event and found him to be a charming individual with a bright eye and a ready smile - in fact he gave me the impression that he might be something of a scoundrel himself, at least might have been in his college days, just like one or two of the characters inhabiting his township with its dying elm trees and neat lawns. It's a book that will get you thinking, and keep you wondering about the suicide epidemic amongst today's teenagers, who often, sadly, try and take their classmates and teachers with them when they take that final bloodspattered step. The book doesn't go that far - here all the teenage boys are more or less stable, or at least as stable as teenage boys can be as they trawl the streets and creep through gardenbs looking for the suicide sisters to no avail. A selection of old pop tunes - like Gilbert O'Sullivan's 'Alone Again ... Naturally' and that all-American special - a garage sale -will bring it all to a neat and tidy end. But that revelation doesn't spoil the plot. The plot, curiously is all laid out in the book's first sentence - it's the whys and wherefores that the author wishes us to ponder. For me, he succeeds brilliantly.