Middlesex: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)

Eugenides weaves together a kaleidoscopic narrative spanning 80 years of a stained family history, from a fateful incestuous union in a small town in early 1920s Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit; from the early days of Ford Motors to the heated 1967 race riots; from the tony suburbs of Grosse Pointe and a confusing, aching adolescent love story to modern-day Berlin. Eugenides's command of the narrative is astonishing. He balances Cal/Callie's shifting voices convincingly, spinning this strange and often unsettling story with intelligence, insight, and generous amounts of humor:

Emotions, in my experience aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic traincar constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." ... I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever.

When you get to the end of this splendorous book, when you suddenly realize that after hundreds of pages you have only a few more left to turn over, you'll experience a quick pang of regret knowing that your time with Cal is coming to a close, and you may even resist finishing it--putting it aside for an hour or two, or maybe overnight--just so that this wondrous, magical novel might never end. --Brad Thomas Parsons

Product Description
A dazzling triumph from the bestselling author of The Virgin Suicides--the astonishing tale of a gene that passes down through three generations of a Greek-American family and flowers in the body of a teenage girl.

In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry blond clasmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them--along with Callie's failure to develop--leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.

The explanation for this shocking state of affairs takes us out of suburbia- back before the Detroit race riots of 1967, before the rise of the Motor City and Prohibition, to 1922, when the Turks sacked Smyrna and Callie's grandparents fled for their lives. Back to a tiny village in Asia Minor where two lovers, and one rare genetic mutation, set in motion the metamorphosis that will turn Callie into a being both mythical and perfectly real: a hermaphrodite.

Spanning eight decades--and one unusually awkward adolescence- Jeffrey Eugenides's long-awaited second novel is a grand, utterly original fable of crossed bloodlines, the intricacies of gender, and the deep, untidy promptings of desire. It marks the fulfillment of a huge talent, named one of America's best young novelists by both Granta and The New Yorker.

The brilliance of this book emerges not from the superficial story of a hermaphrodite but from the context - historical, scientific, psychological, political, geographical - of Cal's birth and subsequent rebirth. MIDDLESEX is about much more than gender confusion. Cal's mixed gender can be taken as a metaphor for the experience of first- and second-generations born of immigrants.

While the context of this story provides the substance, the characters provide the vibrancy. Cal emerges as a reliable and likeable narrator. He is sensible, good-humored, and intelligent. The spectrum of his experiences provides a smooth transition between childhood and adult, enabling the reader to embrace the character as both male and female. Cal's family is affectionately portrayed, even with their failings. (Cal's brother, Chapter Eleven, annoyed me with his name, a running gag, but even he ended up a full-blooded character by the end.)

Eugenides has written an expansive, compelling book. Despite its length of over 500 pages, the novel is not a slow read - unless the reader wants it to be, to make it last. Accessible, intelligent, well-paced and plotted, it should appeal to a wide range of readers.

I can't recommend this novel highly enough.


Both a place and a gender   June 20, 2007
Amanda Richards (Georgetown, Guyana)
101 out of 125 found this review helpful

This is a BIG book, and a little difficult to get through unless you can negotiate with your family for some quiet time.

Basically, it chronicles the formative years of Cal Stephanides, beginning with the grandparents, Lefty and Desdemona, who were really-too-close for siblings, and who fled Greece as their village burned around them. What ignited even hotter was their passion for each other, and under the billowing smoke, they hatched a plan for a new start in America, jiggling the lifeboats all the way to New York.

Their son Milton eventually married his cousin Tessie, producing a strangely-named son Chapter Eleven, and another child who became their strange daughter Calliope.

Unfortunately for Calliope, the sins of Lefty and Desdemona began the awakening process of a little recessive gene which pushed its way to the nether regions of the second grandchild, forming a little extra something to Calliope's feminine format.

Due to a half-blind doddering Doctor acquaintance, this development is overlooked for years, until more observant doctors at the emergency room make the discovery of the little flagpole.

Referred to a specialist, Calliope tells the doctor exactly what he wants to hear, and after sneaking a peek at the medical chart, beats a hasty exit, emerging from the uncomfortable female cocoon as an uncoordinated young man named Cal.

The story from here moves quickly, as Cal puts his Adam's apple forward (this should have been a giveaway long before) and finds himself quite literally in hot water up to his neck, until he ultimately finds his niche and learns to be comfortable with himself.

There are many stories supporting the main theme, some of which are like "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", and some more like "American Pie". Add bootlegging, drugs, fast food and silkworms, throw in a little racism, religion, extortion and a peep show or two - and there you have "Middlesex".

A bit hefty, but never boring.

Amanda Richards


Middlesex: a marvellous journey with a fascinating destination   June 6, 2007
J. Cameron-Smith (ACT, Australia)
50 out of 64 found this review helpful

This epic novel is rich in characters, filled with insight and incident, and enriched by history with a dash of myth. Complex family relationships, genetics, sexual identity and the politics of difference all have a place.

The novel challenges the reader to think about facts and about the extent to which identity is determined by labels. Mr Eugenides has written an insightful novel which is simultaneously a great adventure and a fascinating read.

The reader can choose to enjoy the journey while wondering about the destination. Is this complexity rendered simple, or simplicity rendered complex? You decide. Alternatively, just read the story and become caught up in the life of Calliope/Cal.

I read this novel in July 2003, and recommend it highly.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith


Literary Fraud   September 30, 2002
42 out of 132 found this review helpful

This novel is a literary fraud. It has the appearance of substance, of the monumental and revelatory, but this is mere pretense. The writer worked hard on this book, perhaps too hard. It's painful to see the brute craftsmanship in this novel, to see the smoke and mirrors, each ember agonizingly blown into a tiny and meaningless flame, each mirror strung at an awkward, dangerous angle. It has the appearance of art, but it is actually an engineering feat masquerading as architecture. All the surfaces are sanded, polished, painted, gleaming. We see the author selecting his trees, measuring, cutting them down (sometimes by pen knife), carrying enormous stumps, yes, he is sweating and bleeding. We hear the hammering. We count the nails. Something has been erected. But there is nothing inside. Face the fundamental flaw that cannot be camouflaged. The characters are caricatures. They aren't the stuff of myth. There is nothing rare about them. They are overly familiar. They are the staple of TV sit-coms. Central casting might have sent them. The alert reader winces. Not characters, but the illusion of characters. They don't have gestures, rather they have bits of business. This over-inflated novel, this bloated book, is an assemblage of mythic facades, like a Hollywood B-movie set. I was struck by the essential lack of intelligence emanating from the "characters" like a lethal poison that slowly sickens the reader. The "characters" engage in a mockery of dialogue. They exchange sthitck. This isn't even ethnic melodrama--it's sthick for all seasons. And it's relentless. The voices are repetitious and interchangeable. They are always at the same pitch, precisely. It becomes toneless. The post-post modernism is gimmicky. The reader sees the effort. Come on, fellow readers. This is literature, not woodshop. Even in our debased sub-literary global backwater, it is necessary that the writer receive some valid feedback. It's difficult to get a reality check, when everyone is either on the payroll or a hack. But listen closely. This book is a colossal mess. It's precious and self-conscious, overwrought and cloying. This novel is an embarrassment.


4 1/2 * Pulitzer Prize Winner is Excellent   April 4, 2003
M. Allen Greenbaum (California)
40 out of 46 found this review helpful

Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex" belongs to the sprawling intergenerational book genre, but he explores themes with a fresh perspective. Calliope (later Cal) is the omniscient narrator of a story that begins in 1922 Smyrna, Asia Minor and ends almost 80 years later in Berlin. Most of the story takes place in Detroit, a city that he describes with great insight and emotion. Eugenides expertly switches between the voices of the grown-up Cal and the young Calliope; therefore, we experience events as Calliope did, but with the perspective of Cal (at age 40). Calliope is a winning storyteller, observant, funny, and with realistic childhood and adolescent feelings. Throughout the book, Eugenides demonstrates that Callie's circumstances underlie experiences shared by all: Pain, love, confusion, feelings of being both the same as and different from. I think Eugenides somewhat underestimates the emotional toll that Callie's journey would entail, particularly during her long separation from her family as she makes the psychological transformation from Calliope to Cal. Usually; however, the insights and feelings are so true that it reads like an autobiography.

While the story is compelling, there are some problems that interfere with a fluid read. At times, narrative transitions are handled awkwardly through either through over use of ellipses (...) or with somewhat clunky sentences: 'Milton stepped on the gas, ignoring the scarcity not only of petroleum but of many other things as well,' which breaks into a long list of scarce hope, food, phone calls, clean socks, etc. He also overplays his hand at the Greek tragic motif he is constructing ('Sing now, O Muse, of the recessive mutation'!'; though he later, in apparent contradiction, concludes that we can forge our own truer identities) and in his broad caricatures of ethnic and religious types. There's also a sly quality that sets up "surprise" situations: In the most egregious case of 'magical realism,' or just plain gimmickry, Eugenides uses the conceit of using his fictional character 'Jimmy Zizmo' as the 'real' identity of the actual character, Nation of Islam Muslim founder W.D. Farr, and the denouement concerning Calliope's father and uncle lacks credibility. Mostly though, Eugenides' story is compelling and humorous, and he masterfully evokes place and character (industrial Detroit; a hilarious indictment of an ultra-hip 1970s-era surgeon/sexologist), with a casual ease that nicely belies the serious themes.

The book bears some resemblance to Michael Chabon's own Pulitzer Prize winner, "The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay." In both, the immigrant experience and the forging of a new identity are central, characters journey to find their own "American dream," and urban settings help shape their lives. While Chabon is the more nimble phrase writer, Eugenides is similarly poignant and symbolic. Like Chabon, Eugenides uses metaphor (based on reality) as he explores the ideas of being 'different,' the sometimes-artificial nature of boundaries, and the Greek notion of fate. It is an entertaining and often moving story that, despite some minor annoyances, I recommend very highly.