![]() ![]() It was Desdemona (Cal’s grandmother) that first won my heart, and then it was Calliope (Cal’s childhood name as a girl). It is always challenging as a reader to have a narrator you don’t like. The book is told in first person by the adult Cal, who initially sounds callous and distant. I found the book compelling from the opening pages, but it took me quite a few chapters to come to like the narrator. It is the story of a singular life, told across multiple generations. The background of the story tells of the Turkish invasion of Greece, the immigrant Greek community in Michigan, the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and the evolving understanding of intersexuality. The novel traces the roots of this unique genetic code to the history of intermarriage from her grandparents’ small Greek village. Middlesex is the story of a hermaphrodite, raised as a girl, who comes to discover “she” is genetically male. ![]() And it told a compelling story about fascinating characters I could imagine in real life. It offered a window into other communities and cultures outside my experience. It had rich characters who experience strange relationships and personal transformation. Middlesex is just the kind of epic, multi-generational novel I love. ![]() Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002, 529 pp. ![]()
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