Middlesex

by Jeffrey Eugenides

I read Eugenides's 'The Virgin Suicides' about ten years ago, and really enjoyed it. When 'Middlesex' came out, it got a lot of attention, but I never got around to reading it until now.

Middlesex is basically the story of Cal/Calliope Stephanides, an individual born with 5-alpha-reductase deficiency syndrome, meaning that she had highly ambiguous genitalia, with the result being that she was raised female, until her early teens, when it was discovered that she was genetically male.

Cal is narrating the tale from present day, and looking back at his life. What makes this book most interesting is that he begins to narrate the story by telling about his grandparents, who were living in the shadow of Mount Olympus in the 1920s. They have to flee during the war between Greece and Turkey, and make their way to pre-Depression Detroit. From there, he continues their story, before flipping over to that of Callie's parents' generation, and eventually to his/her own.

Euginedes is a wonderfully inventive writer, providing not just the full story of this family, with its tendency towards questionable mating choices, but also of Detroit, and by extension, America. As much as this is a novel about sexual and gender indentity, it is also about immigration, and the immigrant experience in the USA.