Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides What a great book! Middlesex tells the story of Calliope/Cal Stephanides as she/he navigates the realization and acceptance of intersexuality, tracing the origins of the recessive gene that caused the mutation to her/his body. We follow the incestuous relationship of Cal's grandparents and Greek family through the early to mid-1900s, and the often-funny antics of the cast of characters, which includes the death-obsessed Desdemona, the American Dreamer Lefty, and Cal's Americanized, yet Republican father Milton and her mother Tessie. Cal's sciency-turned-hippie brother Cal and Cal's girlfriend nicknamed The Object round out story's central characters. A cast of side characters populates the book, set mainly in Detroit (a character in itself), and gives the story a vital and diverse richness that delves deep into the ideas of otherness in America. Cal as a young girl navigates her bodily differences with the rest of the girls she kn...