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Middlesex

by Jeffrey Eugenides

(based on 2 reviews)

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Middlesex

'I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver's license records my first name simply as Cal.' So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Point, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.

Top reviews

MIDDLESEX - JEFFREY EUGENIDES

This Pulitzer-prizewinning novel, is a coming-of-age story like no other. Just as Cal struggles to find his identity amidst the confusion of his chromosomes, so too does the reader struggle to understand some of the life-changing decisions that are made in Eugenides' masterpiece. Brilliantly written and ceaselessly interesting!

Review by Stephen Nash (Stevie) on 14:04, 04 Apr 2008

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Beautifully crafted tale with a twist

If I told you ‘Middlesex’ was about hermaphrodism and incest, you might think it’s not for you. Instead then, I’ll tell you it won a Pulitzer Prize, made the Oprah Winfrey Book Club and comes from the author of ‘The Virgin Suicides’. Got your attention? Eugenides’ hero (or heroine?) is a hermaphrodite, but this is only part of this beautifully crafted tale. It is the epic chronicle of three generations of a family; beginning in Greece, fleeing to America during the war with Turkey in 1922, then living through the Great Depression and the Detroit race riots. Most poignant perhaps are the colourful images of Greece and the Greek culture which follows the family though it’s travels and eventually becomes watered-down through the generations. This ‘Greekness’ is an obstacle to their settling in America and the family secrets they thought were left behind are gradually unravelled and come back to haunt them. Calliope, or Cal, is the intersexed narrator of both his family’s history and his own coming-of-age tale: A girl growing up and the man he eventually becomes.
This book is incredible; it really is amazingly written - almost poetic. It’s funny yet sad and well worth every minute of the nine years Eugenides spent writing it. Once you’ve read it, the only question is - are you able to wait for his next one?

Review by Stu Kane on 14:04, 04 Apr 2008

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