Middlesex

Synopsis
A multi-generational saga reveals how the narrator ended up with a chromosomal abnormality that allowed him to be mistaken for a girl until he was a teenager.

My thoughts
I was skeptical of this book when my book club selected it almost 10 years ago. The cover looked overly serious and the premise sounded overly ambitious. And everyone in my book club had a strong opinion on Middlesex. You either loved it or you hated it. I was in the "loved it" camp. It's in my all-time favorites list, and I decided to read it again to see if it was really as good as I remembered it. It was better.

The story is told by 41-year-old Cal Stephanides, an American expat living in Germany. Cal flashes back to a small village in war-torn Greece, where his grandparents' elaborate courtship begins. From there, the story moves to the booming metropolis of Detroit, where Cal's parents grow up. Cal, born Calliope, grows up in a city that's consumed by racial strife, and her family joins others in the white flight to the suburbs. The story takes delicious twists and turns until it finally reaches the pivotal moment - when Callie discovers she's not a girl. And then it deals with the aftermath. (This is the only complaint I have about the book. When Callie/Cal moves away from her family and the characters I'd come to know and love, the story suffers. There are colorful new characters, but they don't have the same depth. And running away was necessary for Cal to come into his own, but I just wasn't as excited about this part of the book.)

The beauty is in the storytelling. Jeffrey Eugenides's writing is infused with love and enthusiasm for his Greek heritage and the city of Detroit. Brilliantly, he uses a production of the play "The Minotaur" as a metaphor for Callie's chromosomal abnormality. Callie's grandparents (all four of them) attend the play about the half-man, half-beast monstrosity the night her parents (both of them) are conceived, thus passing along the genes that will lead to Callie's deformity.

The city of Detroit is just as much a character in the story as Callie or any of her family members. Eugenides describes streets and buildings the way they were in the city's heyday, the way you'd get all misty-eyed about a lost loved one.

The book is nearly perfect - fascinating plot, complex characters, dry humor, and perfect pacing.

Bottom line
Read it - it's a book that will appeal to a diverse array of people from geneticists to linguists.

Fine print
Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
Genre: fiction
Photo from Goodreads
I bought this book.