The Virgin Suicides was published in 1993, the year Bill Clinton became president, the first Beanie Baby went on sale, and Cern released the world wide web source code into the public domain. It was also the year I was born. Fifteen years later, I saw Sofia Coppola’s film adaptation, and my instant messenger avatar became Kirsten Dunst, picking petals from a daisy, stained pink by sunset. Along with many girls in my high school, I wasted hours with digital cameras trying to capture the same dreamy aesthetic as the movie. We held bougainvillaea flowers and posed by stinking suburban lakes, hiding behind our hair, always disappointed by the results that turned out too bright, too childlike, too true.
