"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."
Thus begins Middlesex. Narrated by Calliope Stephanides...called Callie, later Cal, an hermaphrodite born into a Greek-American family, it is the story of the journey that took them from the slopes of Mount Olympus to the suburbs of Detroit...carrying with them a silkworm box, a dark secret and a mutant, recessive gene. The story, told in both the first and third person as Callie shifts from present to past and back again, takes us through the history of that time as it intertwines with the lives of the Stephanides family. It is an epic and a coming of age story...told by a young girl who grows up to be a man.
Eugenides writes with an energy that never flails. It is a compelling tale...one I didn't want to put down and hated to see come to an end. The author demonstrates a real understanding of the human condition as he tackles taboo issues with humor, irony, drama, and poignancy. Middlesex is a long read - over 500 pages - but well worth it. I don't know how I missed it when it was published in 2002 and awarded the Pulitzer in 2003, but I'm glad to have discovered it in 2010!
