Middlesex

by Jeffrey Eugenides

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 Pointe, 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.

Middlesex is the winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

• ISBN10: 0312427735
• ISBN13: 9780312427733
• Publish Date: 5 June 2007 (first published 4 September 2002)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Picador USA
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 544
• Language: English

Reviews

[Mercy]

Si Eugenides me enamoró con Las vírgenes suicidas, con Middlesex le construyo un altar 3.

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

When Jeffrey Eugenides set out to write Middlesex he wanted to “[tell] epic events in the third person and psychosexual events in the first person”. He had decided that the voice “had to render the experience of a teenage girl and an adult man, or an adult male-identified hermaphrodite”. This was no easy task; he had to seek expert advice about intersexuality, sexology, and the formation of gender identity. His motivation came from reading the 1980 memoir Herculine Barbin and being unsatisfied by the lack of detail about intersex anatomy and his emotions.

”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 of 1974.”

If you’ve read Jeffrey Eugenides before you will know he doesn’t just stop at one issue, Middlesex is also loosely based on his life and is used to explore his Greek Heritage. While the book’s main protagonist is Cal Stephanides, Middlesex is a family saga that explores the impact of a mutated gene over three generations. Starting with Cal’s grandparents, the novel looks at their escape from the ongoing Greco-Turkish War and emigrating from Smyrna in Asia Minor to the United States. This section has similar themes to most immigration stories, looking at Greek and US culture in the 1920’s as well as their efforts to assimilate into American society. However this is overshadowed by the fact that Cal’s grandparents are also brother and sister.

Middlesex continues to follow the Stephanides family through the story of Cal’s parents and eventually his life. While the reader gets glimpses of Cal’s life throughout the novel, the last part is where we really explore how the 5-alpha-reductase deficiency (a recessive condition that caused him to be born with female characteristics) impacted his life. While I got the impression that this was the main focus of the novel and to some extent it is, I was expecting to explore the struggle and emotions behind his condition to a greater extent.

Jeffrey Eugenides has a lot going on his novels and you really need to be a literary critic to enjoy Middlesex to the full extent. I love Eugenides because he is too smart for his own good, on a basic level you can enjoy his novels but there is so much going on underneath that rereading is almost essential. Middlesex is a family saga but there are elements of romance, history, coming of age and, because of his Greek heritage, tragicomedy. You could spend hours exploring the hysterical realism and metafictional aspects from this book. For example; does Cal’s condition have any bearing on where he is narrating this novel from? Berlin, a city that also was divided into two (East and West). Also, why does the narrative style switch between first and third person? Some parts of the story are told in first person but Cal would never have been able to recount what happened in that kind of detail. Is this to evoke confusion within the reader, forcing them to just feel a fraction of what Cal must be feeling?

This is an incredibly complex novel and I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of what Jeffrey Eugenides has done. This is in fact the third of his novels I’ve read and sadly that is all of them for now. While I did enjoy Middlesex I found more joy from The Virgin Suicides (which deals with suicide) and The Marriage Plot (dealing with mental illness). I really appreciate the themes Eugenides explores and the complexities of his novels, but personal opinion is going against the norm here. Middlesex is probably his most recognised novel; it even won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Don’t let the complexity of Middlesex put you off reading this fantastic novel; sure, there is a lot there but it still worth picking up. You can spend as much time as you want exploring its depths but in the end you’ll come away with something. It is a compelling read that will stay with you well after finishing it. This is the perfect type of novel to pick up for a book club.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2014/03/30/middlesex-by-jeffrey-eugenides/

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

This was a very odd book. The beginning was ok , it talked about her/his grandparents Desdemona and Lefty, who were also brother and sister living in the old country and emigrating to America and eventually getting married.

When Callie was born who is Desdemona and Lefty's granddaughter that it started to get a little unbelievable Callie was born with both male and female parts hence the "Middle Sex" while her outer exterior is of a female. as she grows up she doesn't develop the way her girlfriends are, no period or breasts instead she has facial hair and a deeper voice. Finally her parent's take her to a gender identity specialist who determines that she is both sexes.

After Callie sneaks a look at her file and learns that she is a "monster" she runs away to California where the story really becomes strange. As she hitchhikes her way to the sunshine state she takes on a new identity as a boy named Cal. In California she becomes part of a gang which loosely reminded me a little of Oliver Twist . After being beaten and discovered for what she truly is she starts work at a freak show/strip club, which includes herself and transvestites.

Meanwhile, of course her parents are sick with worry , her father Milton gets a call from a mystery man claiming that he has his daughter and will release her for 25,000. When her father drops the money off at the designated location of course he doesn't have Callie and the man turns out to be his brother-in-law. An incredibly stupid and pointless car chase begins and eventually killing Milton; it felt like the scene was put in just for the sake of having a car race or in the hopes that it might some day be a made of T.V. movie.

Of course Cal returns safe and sound and his family learns to except him for who he is. This was such an unbelievable story that it was hard to get though , especially when you're saying "oh come on" throughout the novel. I read this for my book club and just recently ran into someone from the group and they expressed the same feelings that I have about Middle Sex so at least I'm not alone.