Middlesex: A Novel

I of course had heard a lot of buzz about this book when it came out a few years ago, but I didn't really pay attention. I have a lingering prejudice against so-called "literary" fiction, born out of my experiences in the 1970s, when Donald Barthelme and his character-is-all school seemed to have

Show More

banished plot entirely. (I know it's not all like that now; that's why it's a prejudice.) Anyway, that means I never register what's up for the Pulitzer, the Booker, the Whatever, because it always seems unlikely that those books will ever hold any interest for me.

I might never have changed my mind about Middlesex if it hadn't been recommended by Abigail Nussbaum at Asking the Wrong Questions. Even with her brief review, and even knowing that the title referred to a boy raised as a girl and not the county in England, I didn't know what to expect. I vaguely guessed it was something very British, with tea and nannies. I could not have been more wrong, and was completely blown away.

Set mostly in Detroit in the '60s and '70s, Middlesex ranges fluidly backward to Turkey in the '20s to Berlin in the present to tell the story of Calliope Helen Stephanides, a biological male raised and treated as a female. With riffs on genetics, history, politics, growing up ethnic in a WASPy world, family, race, the suburbs, and Cadillacs, this is a funny, tragic, eloquent book, with many memorable passages and images.

Part of the fun for me is that Cal is almost exactly my own age. He experienced many of the things I experienced growing up. Like me, he lived through the race riots of the '60s (way more up close and personal than I did, however); his teenage medicine cabinet is filled with Psst instant shampoo and Love deodorant; schoolgirls use Flair pens. (The minorest of quibbles: noone drank bottled water in 1973.) One thing he doesn't really talk about much is Callie's clothes. Did Callie the girl, like me and so many girls our age, fight with her mother about wearing jeans instead of skirts? Would she have experienced them as liberation or as another threat to her precarious gender identity, as with her refusal to cut her hair?

Another gripping, not so fun, aspect of the book is Callie's eventual diagnosis as a hermaphrodite. I think a lot of people can identify with Cal's horror at the realization that, beyond the normal insecurities of adolescence, there really is something different about him. And that what's more, his parents, who supposedly know him the best and love him the most, think he is fundamentally flawed, wrong, broken, in need of fixing. For me, this resonated very deeply with my experience of growing up fat.

In some ways, the book reminded me strongly of Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose in the way Cal reconstructs the lives of his grandparents in an effort to understand and cope with his own situation. Like Lyman Ward, Cal must fully accept his own difference before he can let others in and accept love. I only wish this part of the story -- Cal's final achievement of intimacy with a woman after 30 years of loneliness -- had been more deeply explored.

Edited to add: I may have been late on the Middlesex bandwagon, but at least I beat Oprah!

Show Less

Middlesex by Jefferey Eugenides is as unique as its protagonist, Cal/Calliope Stephanides, a hermaphrodite born a female, yet destined at puberty to express his underlying male nature.

It is easy to see why this book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2003. At once a sweeping rollicking comic

Show More

epic family saga, this novel breaks new ground by successfully hybridizing different literary styles and throwing aside conventions of proper storytelling voice and construction. The novel is told primarily in first person. How else could Eugenides tell the tale of this endearing heroine/hero without resorting to awkward use of pronouns? But then comes the real breakthrough. How does the author take us into the minds of the supporting characters when the novel is narrated in first person? Eugenides solves this by making his narrator creatively omniscient. The reader is consciously aware at all times that it is Cal/Callie, the protagonist, that is stepping into the minds of his/her ancestors and immediate family to reveal their hidden feelings as she/he tells their tales in third person. It works! The storytelling comes alive on two levels: we better understand the motivations of the third-person characters, and we learn to treasure our creative, endearing, fully human storytelling protagonist. As a bonus, this construction often leaves the door wide open for outrageous comedy, and Eugenides makes full use of it.

The book mixes literary styles, too. It starts out almost like a fairy tale—a tragicomic Greek epic—with chorus, no less! Much of the next part of the novel is written in a 19th-century style. Finally, the novel transforms into a modern psychological coming-of-age tale. As the literary style transforms over the course of the novel, we progress from the stories of Cal/Callie’s Greek ancestors through to the present day. Along the way, we are treated to a courageous Greek-American immigrant family saga as well as the story of Detroit from the Prohibition through to the present day. The story of Detroit is so vividly told that the city almost becomes a third character. In particular, we are brought into the alien worlds of early Ford assembly-line factory work, bootlegging prohibition gin-running and speakeasies, the birth of the Nation of Islam, the 1967 race riots, the rise of franchising wealth, and white flight to rich suburbs including sending children to private schools to avoid racial desegregation. All is so vividly recreated that the reader is transported.

At the heart of the novel is, of course, poor confused sweet child Callie/Cal. The story of her/his gradual awakening to sexual awareness, self-acceptance, and identity is profoundly touching, tastfully rendered, and ultimately very believable.

I loved this book. I did not want it to end; even after almost 600 pages, I wanted more.

Show Less

This Pulitzer-prize-winning book is narrated by Calliope Stephanides, who is later known as Cal. She begins:

"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August

Show More

of 1974."

At 41, Cal is a narrator with the perspective needed to share an epic story, beginning with his grandparents who came from Greece to Detroit, Michigan, with a closely-guarded secret. The first half of the book is their story, the story of their son Milton and his wife Tessie, and the story of the immigrant experience in Detroit. It is both sweeping and personal, as any epic story should be. But it is when Calliope is born, joining her older brother (referred to only as Chapter Eleven), that the story becomes intimate, pulling us into the identity struggles that Calliope must negotiate throughout her childhood and adolescence.

I loved this book. It has the feel of some of John Irving's best novels - sweeping, yet intimate (and as a huge Irving fan, that is high praise from me). Calliope is an interesting narrator. Although she tells the story with the perspective of an adult, she is able to bring us into her adolescent mind as she deals with issues of growing up that are at once, similar to those of all great coming-of-age stories, yet completely unique to her experience. She brings us into a family that is loving and warm, but flawed. Their stories are quirky, filled with unusual circumstances, yet wholly believable.

The two halves of this book - before and after Calliope's birth - are not entirely cohesive. She tells the story of her grandparents and parents with some distance. It is a story with details that are specific to them, but with themes that underlie the experiences of many. Calliope's story, on the other hand, is less common, harder to identify with on the surface. This makes it all the more surprising that Eugenides can bring the reader to empathize with this part of the story as much as with the first, more universal part. After escaping from busy daily life into the hands of an experienced storyteller every night for the last week or so, I was sorry to see this book end.

Show Less

Despite the Pulitzer and eons of wonderful reviews and recommendations, I found Middlesex to be a complete miss. I was drawn to the story of Callie/Calliope's hermaphroditism, but after two hundred pages, I was still waiting (impatiently, by now) for the birth of the protagonist. The much too long

Show More

family history of the incestuous Stephanides and their escape to Prohibition-era Detroit did not interest me. Nor did I find the characters relatable or appealing. Middlesex failed to deliver; hard as I still find it to do, I abandoned the novel at two hundred.

Show Less

I have mixed feelings about this book. The opening line of the story grabbed me as very interesting and led me to believe this was going to be a story about a hermaphrodite. I love stories that delve into human psychology. I then found myself ploughing through hundreds of pages to be able to read

Show More

about the character who flamed my intial interest in the book. I had to go through the stories of the main character’s grandparents and parents before, 300 pages later, I finally got to the part which enabled me to start reading about the main character. I hate family sagas. Had I known this would be the case, I would have opted out of reading this book. As it stood, I finished the book because the writing was excellent (and Pulitzer Prize winning), and I still wanted to learn the story of Calliope the hermaphrodite. I finally did get to the part of the story that was engaging...but the wait was way too long.

Show Less

I know I am in the minority here, but Middlesex was a huge disappointment for me. We all know the plot - that it's a story about a Greek girl who later discovers that she's actually a boy. The premise is excellent, but the book falls short in so many ways.

Eugenides is a wonderful writer, and he

Show More

does an excellent job telling a story - too bad it's not the story of Callie but of her grandparents and parents too. You reach the middle of this 500+ page book before Callie is even conceived. However, Callie narrates the whole thing. How would she know such details about her grandparents and parents? She can't - and I think it's a major flaw in the book (not to mention that you have to wait until the middle of the book for Callie to be introduced as a character. Oh sorry, did I say that already? Well, it's worth repeating because it's a major flaw too).

Because half of the book is dedicated to Callie's lineage, I feel his/her character lacks development, which is a huge shame. For me, Callie had the potential to be one of the most interesting characters in modern American literature. Instead, the character falls flat - just like the entire novel.

Middlesex is a Pulitzer prize winner and a recent selection for the Oprah Book Club. Obviously, many people enjoyed this novel. I am sorry that I am not one of them. However, I am more sorry that I wasted a week of my life finishing a book that I now call Middlesucks.

Show Less

“I was born twice…” this book begins. What an intriguing start. And the story lives up to the promise of those words. The past of a young man’s grandparents makes a curious historical love story, taking the reader from the burning of Smyrna to the burning of a Detroit suburb, with odd

Show More

detours through the beginnings of radical Islam and the American dream. I loved the quiet mystery of the main character, the challenge of unknown identity that slowly changes to known but strange. And I loved the challenge to the reader’s preconceptions in the writing. How would we react? And what right would we have to complain? Cal, or Calliope, is Greek and American, man and woman, but above all human, and this delightfully human tale paints a picture of him that sings.

Show Less

I loved this novel. I picked up this fat tome with some trepidation, hearing it was inspired by a memoir discovered and promoted by Foucault by and about a hermaphrodite. I pictured some post-modern turgid avant-garde mess--like Delillo's Underworld, which had been on the same recommendation list.

Show More

Instead I found what was promised in Underworld's blurbs was fulfilled in Middlesex--a Great American Novel--and a page-turner.

Strangely, in the tale of a hermaphrodite I didn't find anything remotely freakish, but humanely universal, as if by having this protagonist of an ambiguous gender, Eugenides was able to embrace and bridge both (all?) genders. It's an ambitious work, taking in about 80 years from his Greek immigrant grandparents roots in Turkey, to his parents and childhood in Detroit, to his coming of age on the road from New York City to San Francisco and his current life at a diplomatic posting in Germany. It takes in massacres in Turkey, Ellis Island, the development of America's car culture, Prohibition with it's Speakeasies and bootlegging, The Great Depression, World War II, The Nation of Islam, Detroit race riots and Black/White relations, the sexual revolution, politics, religion--there doesn't seem anything missed, and yet nothing that feels rambling or contrived or caricatured.

The voice is miraculous. Technically it's a first person narrative, but it breaks the bonds of that point of view into an expansive omniscience in telling its story of three generations: Book One dealing with his grandparents in Turkey and their immigration to Detroit; Book Two with the story of his grandparents and parents in Detroit before his birth; Book Three with his childhood and early adolescence; Book Four with his crisis of identity when doctors discover he's not the girl he was raised to be. Even in those two parts of the book during his own lifetime, the narration has that expansive, feel of third person omniscience, but with the intimacy of the first person voice.

Eugenides makes me feel for his characters. I ached for Callie--and Cal--both. I worried for him. I hoped for him. I was propelled through the 500 pages not wanting to skip one paragraph and ended it sorry it was over and wanting to read this again sometime--and Eugenides other novel.

Show Less

This book was just not my cup of tea. I wanted to like it but I just didn't care about the characters. It was well-written but tedious. I don't think I will be reading anything else by this author. I did enjoy reading about old Detroit but that was about all that I like about this book.

A good read, although I wish the author hadn't teased me with the antagonist's story before launching into that person's family history. I felt like I kept longing to return to the MAIN story.

After reading this, I can understand why it won awards, although there were times when I could see but not touch the award winning book.This is a seriously disturbing book at times, although nothing about it is gratuitously shocking, everything that happens has a reason within the story.I'm amazed

Show More

at how real Cal/Calliope was to me. I had more trouble with the stories of the older generations. I found them interesting but not compelling.The book seemed to be following an interesting but predictable path for most of the course of Calliope's childhood. We'd been given enough clues to see where the story was going. The last section (everything after the visit to the doctor)took me almost completely by surprise, in all storylines.I never did figure out why his brother was referred to as "Chapter 11". An Internet search after finishing the book cleared that up.

Show Less

I picked up this book when I was looking to branch out of my favorite genres and the Pulitzer caught my eye. I figured it had to be interesting once I learned it was about a hermaphrodite, but I really found myself immersed in the story of Cal's family and their experiences as immigrants to the

Show More

U.S. Reading about Cal's Greek family had me thinking about my own family, Polish on my dad's side and Irish on my mom's. The fact that Cal's family settled in Detroit and I was able to recognize most of the locations, which are given enough loving attention to qualify as characters themselves, also brought me all that much further into the story.

It's a beautifully written book, with words used as skillfully as grapes in a master vinter's care, the result being a warming, richly flavored, intoxicating read. I laughed out loud, cried once in a while, and gasped in shock more than a couple times.

I thought the story ended a bit abruptly and almost anti-climatically, but if it had ended with any more drama, it most likely would've felt contrived.

This excellent read is well worthy of The Pulitzer, and if I normally read this kind of realism, I would give it five stars, but because I'm ranking it here for my own purposes among books in my preferred genres of impossible worlds and fantastic tales I must rank it lower. Don't get me wrong though, this book is top notch and will not disappoint, especially if you prefer richly spun stories that take place in our own familiar world.

Show Less

There's something particularly sharp about the way Eugenides picks out the full drama and context of going through the 20th Century American Experience. Looking back after reading this, he did it with Virgin Suicides too, except it was zoomed in on the white-flight suburban moment of the 50s.That

Show More

said, this book is big and sprawling and hilarious and so gripping that I just read the last 300 pages in a single sitting far, far into the night where I really shouldn't still be awake. Sure it's about sexual identity and all the hangups and burning lusts and confusions we have even without having to figure out basic questions of our genitalia. But it's also about immigration, about assimilation, about the history of Detroit and of Greek-Americans, and it's got so much life whirling around it that it easily matches all those vibrant-immigrant-Brooklyn/Manhattan novels that got written in the 50s and 60s. If anything, it's a lot like Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, but zeroed in on a particular genre more and with the laser-sharp sense of story arc and structure that this focus gives you. That is to say, even with the extra focus, it's still this profusion of very, very American experiences and characters and plot events, everything from Henry Ford to bootleggers to Nixon.But Eugenides is just full of talent, and full of HEART (in this book more than his last) enough to make you care deeply for his characters, catch your breath at his plot twists and environments, and giggle wildly at the occasional bit of real absurdity. A great book, and I hope the next one is anywhere near this good.

Show Less

This is a reread of one of my favorite books. The protagonist has 5-alpha-reductase deficiency syndrome, a genetic mutation where the effect is a type of hermaphroditism such that he appears female until puberty, when he essentially switches to becoming male. The story follows the protagonist's

Show More

understanding of himself and of gender in general. He starts with his grandparents, who emigrated from Turkey and set the genetic stage by marrying even though they were brother and sister. It follows through his parents and then his own life, sexuality, and self-discovery, and is interwoven throughout with mythology (he's Greek, so there's a lot of classicism incorporated) and the transformations that society is going through as he is growing up (and transforming himself) (the family settles in Detroit, and there's lots of discussion of race and the dynamics of immigrant and racial populations, as well as a great scene in the Detroit riots).

The writing in this book is excellent. Eugenides has a very fluid style full of subtle allusions and echoes of Greek poets. All of the science and gender research in it is very correct, too. The protagonist's interactions with a particular gender researcher are modeled on an actual case in the gender literature - gender researchers always get very excited when a case shows up that sheds light on the nature vs. nurture debate: the protagonist here (and the real person he's based on) was one such case, being genetically male, but raised as female until puberty. In the famous case the researcher, named John Money if you're interested, believed that the subject proved that nurture (the gender of raising) was the determining factor, claiming that the subject was completely female. Over time, though, the story unraveled and it turned out that aspects of the subject had been concealed, and the subject eventually switched their gender identity to living as a man. The fictionalized version in Middlesex does a very good job exploring all the factors going into this, and is accurate to the real story, as far as I know it.

To summarize, then, Middlesex is a wonderfully written exploration of gender and identity. It is also a great, accurate introduction to most of the common themes you'd encounter in a psychology of gender class. In addition, it's a great story and a compelling family drama. You should read it.

Show Less

To start out with I really loved this novel, I thought it was a brilliant story about a unique (and oftentimes hilarious) family, growing up and defining oneself, and finally about gender identity. I do not put this last carelessly. I really did not see this as a novel purely based on the author's

Show More

desire to publish a commentary on gender-defined roles. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. (Also, at this point I feel to be fair I should say it will be hard to write this without any spoilers, so read ahead at your own risk and know the book is still worth reading.)

The book is broken up into four very distinct parts and this is what makes it hardest to explain or define. To sum up, it could be called a sprawling Greek-American family's epic that segues in the second half into a unique coming-of-age story for a third generation child. What starts out as an immigration story becomes something completely different.

The easiest way for me to explain my feelings about this book is separate it into generations. The story of Lefty and Desdemona's flight from Turkey, clandestine marriage, and beginning a life in America enthralled me. I particularly thought Desdemona's feelings, reactions, and changes were realistic and humorous. Her neuroses played out similarly to my own grandmother's making it easy to imagine her. Lefty was also a well-drawn dimensional character. While he could have easily been flat and boring, his details made him very lifelike.

The second generation lost this a bit. Milton, while an interesting idea, seemed too unbalanced to be real, but was a good foil for Tessie's similarly unlikely character. Milton's personality was too strong too often, while Tessie's simpering, depression bored me. Their teenage selves did not match their grown selves well and the change over was too quick to allow me a chance to adjust. I liked Tessie during her adolescence, but she too quickly disappeared and became her annoying adult version.

Finally, the third generation of Cal and Chapter Eleven once again brought me into the story. I think they need to be looked at together, because while the story is mainly Cal's, Chapter Eleven plays his own part. I liked in particular Chapter Eleven's metamorphosis while at college as it was similar to those I've seen in many of those in my own generation. College is partially about throwing off the box you've been defined by for the past 18 years and partially about finding out where you actually fit. Calliope, later Cal, goes through a similar process, but at an earlier age.

Now to discuss the major plot point of the second half of the book: I saw Calliope's sexual awakening and later gender identity reversal as symbolic (but much more drastic) of the changes all kids go through during adolescence. While the scientific aspects of his case were interesting to read and added a flair of drama not usually present in coming-of-age books, I found the similarities to a normal pubescent teen more striking than the dissimilarities. I think if you read this with the idea that the author is aiming at making grand statements about gender roles in modern life, than you'll be disappointed. If you read it as a narrative about a girl who doesn't know who or what she is, then it becomes an impressive piece of literature.

In all, I really believe you can get out of this book what you want. There will be those who are not impressed with it or are disgusted with the story or will be disappointed that it's not a diatribe against the modern idea of gender. I went into this book knowing a minimal amount about the plot and having no expectations and was very happy with it. I think the author has done an admirable job at following up his first novel, The Virgin Suicides, with another equally well-written novel about a family and coming-of-age while at the same time bringing light to a topic many people know little about. If there is anyone besides me who hasn't read it, I highly recommend it! (Sometimes it seems like I'm the only one who hasn't!)

Show Less

I picked this book up in a charity shop for 50p. Had it been priced higher I probably wouldn't have bothered: although I'd had recommendations to read it, and despite its regular appearance on any number of 'books everyone should read' lists, I was fairly sure I wouldn't like it. And having bought

Show More

it, I was pretty sure it would take me a long time to plough through it.

I was wrong on both counts. I loved this book, and I neglected all sorts of important tasks while I devoured it in less than 48 hours.

Right from this stark and startling opening sentence, this remarkable book surprises and moves the reader. It is the story of Greek-American Cal Stephanides, and of his family and genetic heritage and the circumstances which mean that he spends his early years as a little girl.

It is an immensely powerful story, thought-provoking and it is beautifully told. I rather wished that we'd heard a little more of how Callie/Cal the subject became Cal the narrator, but on the other hand there is something very satisfying about the way that the book ends with a new beginning.

The various strands of the story are interwoven in a way which engages interest and moves the narrative along in a lively manner. The historical and regional detail and atmosphere are beautiful, and the characters are very believable and human.

Very strongly recommended.

Show Less

I remember enjoying this novel not for the hermaphroditic aspects which, thankfully, are not overwhelming, but for the discussion of the family relationships and Greek culture that seemed more prominent. Primarily a Bildungsroman and family saga, the novel chronicles the impact of a mutated gene on

Show More

three generations of a Greek family, causing momentous changes in the protagonist's life. According to scholars, the novel's main themes are nature versus nurture, rebirth, and the differing experiences of polar opposites—such as those found between men and women. It discusses the pursuit of the American Dream and explores gender identity. The novel contains many allusions to Greek mythology, including creatures such as the Minotaur, half-man and half-bull, and the Chimera, a monster composed of various animal parts.
Narrator and protagonist Cal Stephanides (initially called "Callie") is a hermaphrodite man of Greek descent with a condition known as 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, which causes him to have certain feminine traits. The first half of the novel is about Cal's family, and depicts his grandparents' migration from Smyrna, a city in Asia Minor, to the United States in 1922. It then follows their assimilation into American society. The latter half of the novel, set in the late 20th century, focuses on Cal's experiences in his hometown Detroit, Michigan, and his escape to San Francisco where he comes to terms with his modified gender identity. Cal Stephanides is a fascinating character, that and the fine writing style of Jeffrey Eugenides made this a good read.

Show Less

This is an amazing book. I think people are turned off by the idea of it being about the intersex movement...and I should say while I learned quite a bit about that, I really felt this book was so much more than that. The writing itself just wraps around you so well and it becomes a sort of

Show More

adventure through the ages from Greece to Detroit following multiple generations. It becomes, perhaps more than anything else, a fascinating and engaging story.

Show Less

Middlesex is an amazingly complex, touching story that plays out like a modern Greek tragedy. The novel is narrated by Cal, who lives a nomadic exists in the U.S. Foreign Service. Cal lives as a male, but grew up in Grosse Point Michigan as Calliope, the pampered only ‘daughter’ of an upper

Show More

middle class family in the 1960’s and 70’s. Cal relates his childhood and later realization that he is a hermaphrodite with humor and sympathy.

The first part of the novel begins in Turkey with Cal’s grandparents Desdemona and Lefty. Desdemona and Lefty grow up fairly isolated in a small village. They are Greeks, living as second class citizens under Turkish rule. Desdemona works in the family’s silk business, nurturing the silk worms who provide the means for the sibling’s survival. The close knit relationship of the siblings and the sudden upheaval caused when Turkey and Greece go to war lead Desdemona and Lefty to make a fateful decision that will have tragic consequences for the later generations of their family. The section of the novel focusing on Desdemona and Lefty is particularly enthralling and complex.

Middlesex is humorous, touching, tragic and shocking. While the subject matter might be shocking for some readers, the author manages to make all the characters seem sympathetic and believable. Middlesex is a wonderful and novel and definitely worth reading.

Show Less

Middlesex is a story about Calliope, who was raised female, but turns out to actually be a male. Told from a first person perspective, this story spans three generations of the Stephanides' family and is absolutely engaging. The prose is beautiful, the characters are a joy to get to know, and I

Show More

love Cal's personality. It shines through the narration and almost gives a better picture of who Cal is than the story does. (This isn't a bad thing.) I truly enjoyed listening to this novel and liked it far more than I expected I would.

I did think that it was overly long. On the one hand, I loved getting all the background information about Cal's parents and grandparents. But I really do think it took up far too much time. One of my favorite things about this book was the depth Eugenides gave to story and characters; however, some of the things about Cal's parents and grandparents just didn't seem important to the overall story. This frustrated me, because while interesting, I still wanted to get to the point of the story: Cal.

When the time came for Cal's story, I was completely engrossed. His search for identity is dramatic and terrifying in all the ways it should be. And I LOVED the romance between him and "The Object." I thought that was a brilliant story to add to the larger narrative. Like Cal, I found myself wishing that I knew what happened to her.

I can see why this audiobook has won awards -- it is fantastic. Tabori puts life and vitality into the story and every character's dialogue. I even enjoyed the music tracks! I'm not usually the sort of person who likes music in her audiobooks, but I think that the way it was done in Middlesex was perfect. It wasn't there all the time, and it was subtly done. It helped to shift the tone between different parts of the story, which I found clever. While I don't think Middlesex would be any less good in print, the audiobook is certainly a pleasure to listen to, even considering its length.

Show Less

If I didn't hate putting books down so much, I never would have found out how thoroughly unimpressive this really is. I almost never have the urge to just stop reading a book, but this book managed it. In fact, there is not another instance in memory (not including books like Ann Coulter that I

Show More

give disgusted glances at in the store).Eugenides' writing is verbose, uncontrolled, and surprisingly content-less given its weighty appearances. I actually found the family story more engaging. It worked better when we were all pretending there was a revelation coming... something the narrator had not known about her/himself. Once in the "Middlesex part" (for lack of a better term), there is not much in the way of new interpretations or interesting comments on the gender issue. To top it off, the book ends unsound and unredeeming, making me forever regret not listening to my instincts at the beginning to put the book down forever.See Sherri's comments below for a more carefully crafted version of these thoughts. For me, though, change her ambivalent conclusion to the one I've written above. That's right. I didn't like it at all.

Show Less

Middlesex is one of those books that literary critics rave about, but that falls short for the less artistic of us. Don't get me wrong: the topic was unique--sensitive, but well handled--the writing was lyrical, and the story was "sweeping." All the same, I was bored throughout. I thought the topic

Show More

was interesting, but I couldn't relate. I thought the writing style beautiful, but distracting in its superfluous artsiness. I thought the plot had some interesting coincidences that made nice little ah-ha! ha-ha! moments, but I remained distant from the main character throughout. It seemed like he was TRYING to stay distant, perhaps. TRYING to hold himself away at arm's length as something to study but not to love. Perhaps that was the point. Perhaps he wanted to keep himself a little distant because that was part of his personality. If so, I'm not artsy enough to appreciate the characterization device.

Show Less

The transfiguration of one person’s life based on choices made by others can be drastic. An intriguing tale takes a look into different cultures and societies and the taboos that exist amongst them. The underlying meaning of the book, I feel, is a longing to belong and feel loved despite

Show More

circumstances that are beyond our control. Although a strange tale it was believable until the end where the story took a turn and became a completely different book. The ending felt like a soap opera turned desperate.

Show Less

Is it any wonder this book won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for fiction? An empathetic look through the eyes of a hermaphrodite as she (who then becomes he) traces back the lives and events of forbearers from Greece (figuratively leading all the way back to Hermaphroditus) that determined and shaped the

Show More

protagonist years later. Ultimately, nature trumps nurture in this grand, sweeping epic. Middlesex refers to the street in the family's 1960's Grosse Point (Detroit) neighborhood...both realistic, yet clever descriptors alluding to the undetected condition of the child raised as a girl but who bravely wrestles control of his own body from parents and doctors to become, and identify as, a male. If you haven't read this novel, forget any inhibitions you may have about one centered on intersex and treat yourself to a well-crafted story; one that entertains and teaches.

Show Less