Pulitzer Prize-winner Eugenides shares details of third novel

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Jeffrey Eugenides, author of The Virgin Suicides, revealed details of his anticipated third novel in an interview posted July 14 by his US publisher Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. Eugenides is two-thirds of the way through the book, which will be the follow-up to his 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winner Middlesex.

The Virgin Suicides, Eugenides's 1993 debut novel, became a well-known title after it was adapted into a film by Sofia Coppola. After that book put Eugenides on the map, nearly ten years went by before he published his second novel, Middlesex, which won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize and has reportedly gone on to sell more than three million copies.

In an interview that was posted on the Farrar, Strauss and Giroux blog Work in Progress, Eugenides tells FSG president Jonathan Galassi that his anticipated third novel is so far 400 pages long and its settings include Rhode Island, Cape Cod, and Calcutta.

"It begins on graduation day, in 1982, and involves three main characters. The sweep of the action takes place over the next year or so, as the characters begin their lives outside the university gates. The book deals, among other things, with religion, depression, the Victorian novel, and Roland Barthes."

In contrast to his previous two novels, Eugenides calls the forthcoming book "more tightly dramatized, less fanciful."

No details are yet known about the novel's publication date, or its title. In the meantime, readers can find a recent short story by Eugenides, called Extreme Solitude, in the June 7 issue of The New Yorker.

Read the full interview at: http://www.fsgworkinprogress.com

Read Extreme Solitude at:
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/06/07/100607fi_fiction_eugenides