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Middlesex

Jeffrey Eugenides

really liked it 4.00 · Rating details · 565,174 ratings · 22,549 reviews

Middlesex tells the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family, who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City and the race riots of 1967 before moving out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, ...more

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Kindle Edition, 1st Edition, 544 pages

Published April 1st 2010 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (first published September 4th 2002)

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Jul 29, 2007 Trina rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

I got off the bus from Bumbershoot around 1 AM, exhausted. Convinced that even the cars speeding past my window couldn’t keep me from this night’s rest, I opened the door to a stench of exceptional vileness. Not a dead stench, or a spoiled food stench. This was the stench of sewage. From a spot in the center of the living room I surveyed the apartment and discovered the source: the commode and the area around it were covered in yuck. I dialed up the landlord. The exchange went something like ...more

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Jul 14, 2007 Peter added it · review of another edition

Don't judge a book by its cover.

I'd seen this book on the shelves of a number of friends and in the arms of a number of travelers, so I decided to pick it up. The title, "Middlesex", suggested English countryside to me. On the cover was what looked like a steamship, and a quote on the back began "Part Tristram Shanty, part-Ishmael..." So I came to the foolish conclusion that this was some 19th century English seafaring novel. (Typical.)

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Middlesex is the story of a Don't judge a book by its cover.

I'd seen this book on the shelves of a number of friends and in the arms of a number of travelers, so I decided to pick it up. The title, "Middlesex", suggested English countryside to me. On the cover was what looked like a steamship, and a quote on the back began "Part Tristram Shanty, part-Ishmael..." So I came to the foolish conclusion that this was some 19th century English seafaring novel. (Typical.)

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Middlesex is the story of a hermaphrodite who grew up as Calliope but discovered in her adolescence that she is actually more Cal than Calliope. More specifically, Middlesex (the title takes on a new meaning now) is the story of three generations of a Greek family and the incestuous genetic and social history that enables the existence of Cal, who narrates the story.

The novel is epic. It spans nearly a century and traces the Stephanides family from battle-torn Greece and Turkey in the 1920s, across an Atlantic voyage, from the street corners of Detroit, through World War II, and out to the suburban haven of Grosse Pointe, Michigan. The novel incorporates details upon details from all different spheres of life, dropping name brands from different time periods and regions and incorporating specialized jargon from a wide range of fields--Jeffrey Eugenides must have done an immense, immense amount of research during the writing process.

And the scope is as broad as the focus is often narrow. Over the course of 20th century, the Stephanides family responds to and participates in political, social, and cultural movements, and through them, we feel not only the sweep of a small Greek enclave, but also the sweep of a nation's growth as it engages Prohibition, World War II, the idealism of the 50s, the revolutions of the 60s and 70s, and more. The story is as much about the conflicts within a country as it is about a family trying to face its secrets, past and present.

Through it all, Cal, as a narrator, is clever and endearing. A story about a hermaphrodite sounds unfamiliar to most at first, and there are moments in the novel when Cal faces the visceral or fearful reactions that arise in those prone to fear. But, from page one, Eugenides clears the air, setting us on a fresh foundation, and we discover a character who faces familiar childhood and adolescent trials and tribulations--we discover the humanity of a character one might otherwise find alienated elsewhere.

Do I recommend it? Yes. It's a good tale for the modern age.
Would I teach it? Not likely. At 527 pages, it's just too long.
Lasting impression? Epic. I'll remember it for the incredible depth and breadth of knowledge it demonstrates. This novel impresses upon me the amount of research that an author must do to prepare for a serious work. ...more

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Aug 19, 2012 Emily May rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, 2016

“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.”

I'd heard Middlesex was about a character who was born intersex and raised as a girl - a compelling enough premise on its own - but I didn't realize this book was a rich, complex family drama, spanning multiple generations and featuring heavy subjects like incest, immigration, family secrets and twentieth-century America.

It seems some readers were disappointed about this and wanted more from our protagonist and narrator, but I honestly love these kind of stories. So many characters came in and out of this novel, and were in turns likeable, deserving of sympathy, annoying and downright insufferable (but kind of in a good way). I love it when authors create such well-drawn individuals who feel so completely real and alive - it makes me far more invested in their stories.

And there is so much going on here. We are taken on a journey of familial (and genetic) history, from a small Greek village to Detroit (prohibition, race riots and many cultural changes) to suburban Michigan. Eugenides allows Cal to explore his identity and come to terms with who he is by taking his story way back to the beginning. Back before he questioned his gender; back before he was even conceived.

I actually quite liked the idea that a person has been years in the making long before they're born. That our stories begin way before us in far off lands, in communities and societies that are foreign to us. Not to get too cheesy, but there's something pleasantly overwhelming about novels that make me feel small amid the vast expanse of the universe.

I really liked it. I liked the science. I liked the history. And I really liked the novel's humanity - all these unforgettable characters each having an important part to play in the story of Calliope "Cal" Stephanides.

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Apr 17, 2011 Jason rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: thrill-me-chill-me-fulfill-me, for-kindle, 2011, reviewed

Alright, it’s high time I review this hermaphroditic little masterpiece.

Being a pseudo-biochemist (pseudo in the sense that I only pretend to be a biochemist, whereas in reality I write scientific development reports and other documents that no one will ever read but which I’ve convinced myself are just as fulfilling as doing real science), I find the premise of this novel to be incredibly interesting.

5α-Reductase deficiency is an autosomal recessive disorder; autosomal meaning that the gene Alright, it’s high time I review this hermaphroditic little masterpiece.

Being a pseudo-biochemist (pseudo in the sense that I only pretend to be a biochemist, whereas in reality I write scientific development reports and other documents that no one will ever read but which I’ve convinced myself are just as fulfilling as doing real science), I find the premise of this novel to be incredibly interesting.

5α-Reductase deficiency is an autosomal recessive disorder; autosomal meaning that the gene coding for 5α-Reductase is not located on a sex chromosome (X or Y), and recessive meaning that one would need two copies of a mutated form of the gene in order to express the disease trait. Since we as a biological species inherit one copy of every gene from each of our parents, it would not be enough to have only one mutated form of this gene because a single “good” copy is all that’s required for proper function. Because of this, the proper-functioning gene is considered to be completely dominant over the mutated form in terms of phenotypic expression.

Here is a Punnett square showing basic concepts of Mendelian genetics:

Each form of the gene is called an allele: “B” represents the dominant allele, or the healthy gene form; “b” represents the recessive allele.

If both parents are phenotypically “normal,” the only way they would be able to have any offspring with this disease is if they were both carriers, meaning they each have one dominant and one recessive allele. In this way, they are said to be heterozygous for this trait, the genotype of which is represented as “Bb.” For any child they conceive, there would exist a 25% chance of that child inheriting two recessive alleles. This is referred to as being homozygous recessive, the genotype of which is represented as “bb.” Only homozygous recessive children will express the disease.

Since the protagonist of this novel has unluckily inherited both recessive alleles, one from each of his parents, he ends up with the disorder. So what is this disorder, exactly? The 5α-Reductase gene codes for an enzyme which converts testosterone into a potent sex steroid called dihydrotestosterone, or DHT, which plays a fundamental role in the formation of the male sex organs. Since disease subjects do not have the ability to convert testosterone into DHT, they end up with too much testosterone and not enough DHT, which in some cases leads to the formation of ambiguous genitalia.

These ambiguous genitalia form one of the many, but probably the most interesting, subjects of the novel. The author begins by tracing the history of these recessive alleles back through the family lineage before elegantly leading us to the budding of the protagonist’s crocus: his ambiguous little penis stub (yes, you should click there; and yes, you should see that movie). Perhaps not surprisingly, the historical tracing reveals some ancestral inbreeding, as well. And since the protagonist is still genotypically male (even though he doesn’t know it and neither do his parents or anybody else), the real fun begins when he enters puberty.

When I met with my book club to talk about this fantastic novel, a few pronoun choices were used for describing the protagonist: he, she, he-she-it, etc. But all joking aside, the protagonist is male. He is male by genotypic definition (he has two healthy sex chromosomes, one of which is a Y), and he sexually identifies himself as male which is consistent with other real-life sufferers of 5α-Reductase deficiency. ...more

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Oct 07, 2014 Fabian rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Exactly the flawless masterpiece you've heard it is. I've read hundreds of novels in my day, & this is in the top 3 (On equal shelf with "A Confederacy of Dunces" & "Blonde." (My own personal trifecta perfecta: The THE the best novels of ALL TIME!)) I will never stop lauding this book. Unbelievable, mythic; the stuff from the Gods to anyone with an eye & brain to receive from the way-up up up heights.

This is LIFE AFFIRMING literature that's meant to be treasured for the rest of your ...more

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Sep 26, 2007 Andrew rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This would have been better as an NPR story or an episode of "This American Life" than a novel. Or maybe if someone other than Eugenides had written it. An interesting idea, and a few engrossing sex scenes (I like the "crocus" and the peep-tank, and the whole long flirtation with The Object drew me in completely), and a nice two pages toward the end when Julie accepts Cal for what he is. But the prose was awful: frequent maneuvers like "And me? That's simple. I was . . . " are really This would have been better as an NPR story or an episode of "This American Life" than a novel. Or maybe if someone other than Eugenides had written it. An interesting idea, and a few engrossing sex scenes (I like the "crocus" and the peep-tank, and the whole long flirtation with The Object drew me in completely), and a nice two pages toward the end when Julie accepts Cal for what he is. But the prose was awful: frequent maneuvers like "And me? That's simple. I was . . . " are really unacceptable. And "Sing, Muse, of Greek ladies and their battle against unsightly hair!" is about as funny as poop.

Except for the incest, the long family-history plot was like a mashup of immigrant dramas from cable TV: Greek family barely escapes home country to make it to the United States, where they wander through 20th century history in a dull procession of unmotivated Gumpy forays into Wikipedia that have no effect whatsoever on their character development. (Now we'll shove these characters through Prohibition! mass production! the Detroit race riots! The partition of Cyprus! San Francisco hippies! the tragedy of Michael Dukakis's helmet moment! and . . . the founding of the Nation of Islam!)

The incest part of the story was good in the beginning -- the early love scenes between the grandparents are wonderful -- and then impressively tedious (Desdemona feels guilt! and then . . . she feels guilt again!). The metaphors are embarassingly bad: Cal lives on a street named Middlesex, and eventually finds reconciliation of the two sides of himself in Berlin after reunification. Why not have Desdemona live on "I Feel Guilty For Sleeping With My Brother Boulevard"?

Cal remains completely undefined as a character, except in terms of his understandably tough time figuring out his own identity; "confused" isn't much of a character. Everyone else in the book fails to exist at all. Jimmy Zizmo turns out to be the founder of the Nation of Islam? Eugenides says self-importantly that "you've probably guessed" that -- no! Not only did I not guess it, it doesn't make any sense, logical or emotional, and it's completely uninteresting. Why not have him turn out to be Richard Nixon? Uncle Mike turns out to be a psychopath who extorts his own family? Why? Who cares?

Cal's lack of voice or character is the worst thing: if your book aims to show readers what it's like inside the world of an intersex person, you should show us that world from the inside in a way that makes sense, or at least a way that's interesting. Cal has no voice, no face, no identity. What voice there is is completely inconsistent with his behavior -- the current Cal is reticent, shy, depressed, lonely, and retiring; our narrator is open, boisterous, discursive, ironic, omniscient for no particular reason, and irritatingly jokey.

And the book no more has ideas about sexuality than it does about Cal's character. As one reviewer said, the most disappointing thing about the book is it ends up reinforcing stereotyped, dumb ideas about gender (like "Breasts have the same effect on me as on anyone with my testosterone level" -- as if there were no gays). Callie's pursuit of The Object doesn't make her question categories, it just convinces her she's a boy. There is no middle sex here; there's no middle ground; it's more gawking than Tiresias-like insight. ...more

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Mar 31, 2017 Michael Finocchiaro rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, american-21st-c, pulitzer-fiction, novels, pulitzer-winning-fiction

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides is a surprising and wonderfully written story about the life of Calliope/Cal Stephanopolis who in the opening lines "was born twice: first, as a baby girl...and then again as a teenage boy." The subject of hermaphroditism or intersexuality is addressed throughout as the book as a running theme as the cinématographique narrator Cal looks back at his childhood as Calliope and explains his complex incestuous family history from the origins of her grandparents as ...more

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Jun 19, 2009 Cassy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-general, award-pulitzer, physical-own, event-met-author, region-america-canada, 2011

This isn’t so much a review as an embarrassing story. I gave the book four stars for a reason. The writing is beautiful. I would recommend it. Now onwards to my shame.

So Brooke and I were standing in line to meet Eugenides. Please understand it was a really long line after a similarly long day at work. We passed the time chitchatting about this and that at our workplace and life in general. By the time the organizer offered post-its* to our segment of the line, we were getting silly and joked This isn’t so much a review as an embarrassing story. I gave the book four stars for a reason. The writing is beautiful. I would recommend it. Now onwards to my shame.

So Brooke and I were standing in line to meet Eugenides. Please understand it was a really long line after a similarly long day at work. We passed the time chitchatting about this and that at our workplace and life in general. By the time the organizer offered post-its* to our segment of the line, we were getting silly and joked about all the crazy names and titles you could request. Instead of sticking to your name, you could put down “Boo-Bear” or “Sunshine Sally”. Just imagine: you could have an autographed book with some outrageous inscription like “To the best unicorn, Jeffrey Eugenides”.

Throughout the course of the night, I had been trying to persuade Brooke to visit a bookstore I thought she would enjoy. She was reluctant for unknown reasons. Under the influence of a bizarre mixture of exasperation, exhaustion, and silliness, I proposed a bet. I had already written my plain-ole name on the post-it. If she promised to accompany me to an event at the bookstore, I would add “baby” under my name. She quickly agreed.

As we waited thereafter, I began to second guess the stunt. But before I could request a new post-it, the line betrayed me. While it had moved at a glacial pace initially, now it swept me forward.

When I handed Eugenides my book, he stared at the post-it for a second and then looked up at us. He asked, “Who is Cassy Baby? Is that you?” I was mortified. Utterly mortified. I tried to quickly explain the promised bookstore visit, but I think in actuality I just pointed at Brooke and mumbled something like, “She made me.”

Looking back, the whole episode could be construed as a power struggle. Could a literary nobody force a Pulitzer Prize winner to write something stupid? If he refused, he might seem like a jerk. His best option was probably to play along and, bless his heart, he did. Perhaps he thought it was amusing. I doubt it. So, here it is:

[image error] I could die.

Who was the real winner out of this mess? Brooke. Allow me to list the ways. (1) She was witness to my shame. (2) She did visit the bookstore – although she ditched for me the promised event and went on her own later. (3) As I suspected she would, she became a fan of said bookstore. (4) And this is the cherry on the top: Eugenides inscribed her book to “Brooke Baby”.

-------------
*If you want your book personalized, the host will generally hand out post-its. You write your name on the post-it and place it on the title page where the author will sign. This way the author doesn’t struggle to spell your name correctly.
...more

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Jun 17, 2008 Cecily rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: miscellaneous-fiction, canada-and-usa, sexuality-gender-lgbtq, historical-fict-20th-cent

This is a book about transition.
Transition from child to adult to parent and grandparent.
From native to immigrant.
From brother and sister to husband and wife.
From rural dweller to urbanite.
From modest affluence to poverty and up again.
From loving language to losing the power of speech.
From geek to hippie.
From war through peace to civil unrest.
From belief to unbelief.
From rescued to rescuer.
From moral probity to corruption and crime.
Oh, and one character transitions from female to male.

The last ...more

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Aug 20, 2018 Candi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, contemporary-literary, favorites, book-i-own, chunksters, pulitzers

"Some people inherit houses; others paintings or highly insured violin bows. Still others get a Japanese tansu or a famous name. I got a recessive gene on my fifth chromosome and some very rare family jewels indeed."

Let me say first that Jeffrey Eugenides is an extraordinary storyteller! Why I’ve waited so long to read one of his books is beyond me.

Middlesex is an epic multi-generational saga of a Greek family with one of the most engaging narrative voices I’ve come across in quite some time. "Some people inherit houses; others paintings or highly insured violin bows. Still others get a Japanese tansu or a famous name. I got a recessive gene on my fifth chromosome and some very rare family jewels indeed."

Let me say first that Jeffrey Eugenides is an extraordinary storyteller! Why I’ve waited so long to read one of his books is beyond me.

Middlesex is an epic multi-generational saga of a Greek family with one of the most engaging narrative voices I’ve come across in quite some time. It’s also the story of said narrator, Cal, and what might be considered a rather unconventional topic – that of hermaphroditism. "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." I have to admit that I picked this book up ages ago and set it aside. At the time I thought there was no way I could establish any kind of connection to the main character given the fact I had never had any kind of exposure to persons with this condition. There is an incestuous element that made me run the other direction as well. Now of course I’ve matured a bit since that time and realize that there are a myriad of ways to connect to any human being. The skillful pen of Eugenides helped a bit too, of course. This time, I was hooked from the start and simply couldn’t help but be charmed by Cal. The author takes us into some places that are uncomfortable - those shadowy places that could get quite dark if handled differently. Instead we are taken there with a voice that is often humorous while still managing to be sensitive and respectful – an admirable accomplishment!

I’m not going to go into any further detail about this book – there are thousands of other reviews and my goal is to catch up on mine before summer slips away. I’ve failed to mention that this book is also rich in historical detail, and I’m always a sucker for that. Eugenides manages to weave so much history throughout and he does so quite seamlessly. Motor City, the Detroit race riots, Asia Minor conflicts, immigration issues, and family dynamics are all explored. But Middlesex is much more than that. It’s also a drama about the human condition that is so compelling that you will feel an attachment to Cal even if you never thought it possible! If you can set aside any feelings of uneasiness and just allow yourself to get swept away with Cal’s story, then you are in for a real treat. A 5-star book that I highly recommend! ...more

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Sep 16, 2017 Arah-Lynda rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: prize-winners, to-the-island, lod, i-said

ex ovo omnia: everything comes out of an egg.

Yowsers, there are over twenty thousand reviews of this book on this site alone, so no, cannot say that I’ve read them all, but it does get me to thinking ………..

I enjoyed this book way more than I expected. And yet my expectations were misinformed by assumptions, most of which were my own, not the least of which was about the title.

Sometimes when reading I feel compelled to slow down, take my time. Such was the case with this book. It’s a marathon, ...more

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Jun 10, 2007 Trevor rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2002

"When I told my life story to Dr. Luce, the place where he invariably got interested was when I came to Clementine Stark. Luce didn't care about criminally smitten grandparents or silkworm boxes or serenading clarinets. To a certain extent, I understand. I even agree."
I agree too. This quote comes from page 263 and is really where the story picks up and gets into the subject the book promises--Cal's life as a hermaphrodite. Honestly, while the first 263 pages were interesting and had some "When I told my life story to Dr. Luce, the place where he invariably got interested was when I came to Clementine Stark. Luce didn't care about criminally smitten grandparents or silkworm boxes or serenading clarinets. To a certain extent, I understand. I even agree."
I agree too. This quote comes from page 263 and is really where the story picks up and gets into the subject the book promises--Cal's life as a hermaphrodite. Honestly, while the first 263 pages were interesting and had some important developing points, it could have been distilled a great deal. Eugenides is a great, fluid writer--very witty. But dang, he's wordy. I guess after reading several books by Cormac McCarthy I'm bound to get distracted by verbosity. I'm not saying I don't like long--my favorite book is The Brothers Karamazov--I just don't like all the superfluous words.
Still, the book is compelling so far. I'm not as driven to read it as I think I should be, but I don't find myself putting it down after every paragraph to check my email either.

UPDATE: I have finished the book. In the end, I felt like it didn't deliver. I see a lot of connections Eugendides is making about identity, but they didn't seem developed. In fact, there were many symbols throughout the book that were very clever but ultimately seemed to be only that--a device used to show cleverness and not to really further the plot. Another problem I had with the book was the fact that Eugenides tells too much about his characters and yet I still feel like it is underdeveloped. For example, he has great characters in mind and some great episodes to show how they feel, but then he simply runs through the story and then tells you how the character felt--I wanted to feel how the characters felt.
I enjoyed two things about the book. First, the Forrest Gump-like trek through American history. There are really some fascinating episodes in this book. And Eugenides does an excellent job ellaborating on them. Sometimes I felt like he should have written an essay on American history rather than this novel. The second thing I enjoyed was Eugenides sly, clever writing. I know that above I said that some things seemed to be there just to showcase the author's wit, but some of those things were really clever and enjoyable. The writing kind of reminded me of Jim Carrey's acting: at moments it was brilliant, hysterical, and spot on; but at other moments it was just too much, needed to be toned down, better controlled.
As I said, this book didn't deliver for me. I liked it because of its promise. The idea is fascinating. However, as talented as Mr. Eugenides is, a little more control would be nice. ...more

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Dec 30, 2016 F rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016, usa, greece

I like books with family stories but it was very dull at some parts.

For me the start was really exciting with the grandparents.
The when they got to America it dragged for me. Over abundance of information.
Picked up towards the end again when it was more about Cal's discovery.

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May 08, 2007 Taylor rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: everyone with an open mind, and even some of those with closed ones.

Shelves: fiction, favorites, own, recommended, golden-years, in-a-time-long-ago, in-a-land-far-away, its-a-family-affair, awards-and-accolades, emotional-gut-punch

Mr. Eugenides can do everything, or at least I am convinced of such after reading Middlesex.

I passed on this book for a long time. I kept picking it up in bookstores and putting it down. I've seen quotes from it everywhere, all of which were beautiful, and kept hearing wonderful things about it from friends. To be perfectly honest, what kept me from picking it up in the subject: a hermaphrodite. I think of myself as someone with an open mind, but the thing is that I just wasn't sure if I'd be Mr. Eugenides can do everything, or at least I am convinced of such after reading Middlesex.

I passed on this book for a long time. I kept picking it up in bookstores and putting it down. I've seen quotes from it everywhere, all of which were beautiful, and kept hearing wonderful things about it from friends. To be perfectly honest, what kept me from picking it up in the subject: a hermaphrodite. I think of myself as someone with an open mind, but the thing is that I just wasn't sure if I'd be able to relate to much in this story. I made a very foolish assumption, and I'm quite embarassed about it.

Middlesex is a slow burner (my new favorite term). It begins with the story of Cal/Calliope's grandparents, which seems unnecessary in the beginning, but which makes more sense with each passing page. The story then passes on to the parents, then Cal.

A couple pages in, Eugenides describes a rather gruesome scene, and this was my signal that this is a no-holds-barred kind of author. He goes there. (This isn't to say that the book is filled with gruesome moments, just that he's not afraid to use them when he must.)

To address the smoking gun, so to speak, yes, the main character is a Hermaphrodite. Though the reader knows it throughout the book, the main character doesn't know until they're older. It seems incredulous, but Eugenides makes it work, and makes this believable. He was smart to do things this way, because I was on the edge of my seat waiting for Calliope to discover the truth. And, most likely, he keeps a lot more not-so-open minded readers this way.

There's a very frank beauty about this book - he doesn't gloss over anything, but despite the many struggles of the three generations, he doesn't feel it necessary to make his reality very bleak, either. Even when the book is at its darkest, most depressing, you're filled with sadness, but also with hope.

The other great thing about Middlesex, aside from its incredible cast of characters is how well it captures society in history - first in Detroit in the '20s (a more bleak picture than '20s of The Great Gatsby), then the '60s. The '20s are focused on the invention of the automobile - the people putting them together as opposed to the people driving them, and the impact that being part of an assembly line and big business had on people, and of course, prohibition. With the '60s, Eugenides tackles race so marvelously - the chapter about the Detroit riots is probably the best in the book, for all of the anxiety and imagery that he evokes. This book is really just as much about middle class America and family ties as it is about sexuality.

Don't make the mistake that I made by continually passing on this book - read it! ...more

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Jul 02, 2017 Robin rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, pulitzer-prize-winner, 2017, american

Hmmmmm.... what to say, what to say...

I sometimes go into a book "blind" - to be as unpolluted in my expectations as can be, looking only at the star ratings of my Goodreads friends in order to determine whether I will try a book. I knew only that an overwhelming number of my friends enjoyed it, and that it won the Pulitzer in 2003. Both great reasons for me to pick up this book.

I didn't realise until I looked on the jacket cover that the book was about an individual, Calliope (later, Cal) who ...more

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Mar 28, 2009 Jacob added it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-and-literature, i-own, 2012

April 2012

Goddammit, Middlesex is beautiful. It's epic. And it's roughly 500 pages too short. That's right--too short. As a sweeping, three-generation epic novel that covers the lives of Calliope's grandparents, parents, and her own childhood before she became Cal, it's a damn near perfect novel. As the story of Cal, post-transformation, it's...sadly lacking. The last quarter of the book is rushed and unsatisfying. It's beautiful anyway, but a few hundred extra pages wouldn't have hurt...

It also ...more

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May 17, 2008 Jason Pettus rated it liked it · review of another edition

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

The CCLaP 100: In which I read a hundred so-called "classics" for the first time, then write reports on whether or not they deserve the label

Book #15: Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides (2002)

The story in a nutshell:
The tale of "the most famous hermaphrodite in history," Middlesex is the second and ...more

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Feb 20, 2008 Kim rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary

This book has all the major players....

Incest, war, teenage girl-on-girl experimental sex, deadheads, undescended testes, and a 2 inch penis.

Yep, it took me all of one chapter to realize that Middlesex was referring to something besides a county in England.

Best Part: Answering Maurice's question "What's that about?" then watching him squirm and cross his legs in obvious pain.

Worst Part: Glaring Oprah sticker on the cover telling me I've succumbed to the masses.

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Oct 13, 2014 Joe Valdez rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-general

Flying to Detroit for the Fourth of July weekend to visit my brother in Ypsilanti, I was looking for a great novel set in Michigan to read during my travels. Published in 2002, I'm confident that Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides--winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction--would be one of my favorite novels whether I read it in the Wolverine State, in a box or with a fox. This three-generational family saga leaps from Greece to Detroit, across the U.S. and then over the sea to Germany to tell the ...more

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Sep 04, 2007 Kelly rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Would have given this book two more stars except for one resounding disappointment I can't get past. I thought that one of the most important aspects of the book was entirely skipped over by the author without any explanation.

*Spoiler Alert* It's probably not a spoiler, but what I have to say may alleviate some of the intrigue - you have been warned.

I really, really, really wanted to know why Calliope 'chose' to live life as Cal once she learned that she was a biological male. It was, arguably, Would have given this book two more stars except for one resounding disappointment I can't get past. I thought that one of the most important aspects of the book was entirely skipped over by the author without any explanation.

*Spoiler Alert* It's probably not a spoiler, but what I have to say may alleviate some of the intrigue - you have been warned.

I really, really, really wanted to know why Calliope 'chose' to live life as Cal once she learned that she was a biological male. It was, arguably, the most important and perhaps only choice she->he had in the entire book, and the author just skips that part. This transitionless transition to living as a male stands in stark comparison to the rest of the book which does a competent job of developing each of the main characters throughout their lives...and for every other seemingly inexplicable action the reader understands the characters enough to know WHY they acted in a certain way.

The Calliope->Cal change is so abrupt in the book, and lacks any of the personal insight that the rest of the book teems with...it's almost like the author got tired of writing by the time the transition comes about (quite late in the book), and he just wanted to be done with it. Perhaps the author didn't expand on the "choice" to live as Cal because his point is supposed to be that it really wasn't a choice. But I would even have liked to know why Calliope didn't think living as Cal was a choice and was instead a biological or personal inevitability...but no aspect of her choice/lack of choice was addressed.

Inappropriate foreshortening aside, I do think that the writing is often quite eloquent. I certainly would have appreciated fewer of the cliche metaphors for change/new beginnings/etc. The author does take the obvious to new heights, however, when he would state for the reader too obtuse to understand that the egg being described actually represents an immigrant beginning life in her new land by ending the paragraph with something like, "...you see she was that egg." ...more

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Jun 01, 2009 Jason Koivu rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, penises-abound

What a big pile of everything this is!

I like books like Middlesex, one's that stretch over generations, capturing historic moments in time from different perspectives and encapsulating an era. But sometimes they can be too busy, and Middlesex is toooo damn busy.

Part of the problem is that the transgender struggles of the main character are plenty of story to work with, so there's no need to tie in an immigration from the motherland tale or set it against the 1960s Detroit riots as a background. ...more

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Nov 22, 2014 Suzanne rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

It goes without saying that this is one amazing book and my first Pulitzer winner as well. I took two weeks to read this one, but this is my issue, as always. I was incredibly inpatient, with a lifestyle that does not do well in relation to not being instantly gratified. This is such a special story, there is no instant anything. It is to be savoured and appreciated, there cannot be any rushing. I think I’m best in this instance to just write about my experience whilst reading this top notch ...more

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Jul 18, 2018 Sara rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, pulitzer-prize-winners, 2018-aty-challenge

Middlesex is Jeffrey Eugenides’ Pulitzer prize winning novel about a hermaphrodite, Calliope Stephanides, the family who made her, and her journey from being her father’s little girl to being his youngest son.

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.

This opening line sets up everything that is to follow, and Eugenides spins what is a Middlesex is Jeffrey Eugenides’ Pulitzer prize winning novel about a hermaphrodite, Calliope Stephanides, the family who made her, and her journey from being her father’s little girl to being his youngest son.

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.

This opening line sets up everything that is to follow, and Eugenides spins what is a difficult tale with complete command and amazing dexterity. There is a lot of subtle humor in the novel, which is needed with what could be a seriously uncomfortable subject otherwise. Calliope/Cal is often able to laugh at his own predicament and find the humor in his family dynamics, and so we laugh with him, not at him.

In making Cal so likable and genuine, Eugenides makes it impossible to miss the aim of this novel. He is different, he is unusual, he might even be weird, but he is human, and he is like us in every way, but one. His desires for love and acceptance and self-identification are common to us all. As he struggles with why he isn’t like the other girls, we struggle with why he needs to be. His story is so compelling because it is impossible not to relate to it in toto. I, in fact, wondered how Eugenides managed to know so well what it felt like to be teenage girl.

He also said, “here’s what’s not so funny. These live, irreplaceable sons and daughters of God, human beings all, want you to know, among other things, that that’s exactly what they are, human beings.”

When I read that, I thought, that’s it in a nutshell, the crux of the matter for all of us, we are human. If you prick us, do we not bleed?

I have never started a book with less hope of loving it and ended up so completely reversed. I doubted that this story was in my wheelhouse, but then realized that was the point, this situation is outside everyone’s wheelhouse, even the people, like Cal, who deal with it first hand. Some books are meant to expand our horizons, the best ones always do that, this one did.
...more

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Jul 31, 2018 Luís C. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites, us-canada-author, queer-lgbt, bloomsbury, reading-the-world, 21st-century, 1001-done-books

When the Turks invade Smyrna, two Greeks, Lefty and her sister Desdemona, embark for America, with their meager baggage and a recessive chromosome each waiting patiently to be woken up. The circumstances are favorable to them since Lefty and Desdemona profit from landing in unknown land to live their forbidden passion and to marry. Their son marrying his cousin, the little Calliope is born, girl for everyone, although having the gonads of both sexes.
The novel is divided into two main parts: the ...more

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Dec 27, 2014 Barry Pierce rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2014

Jeffrey and I started on very bad terms. I read his Virgin Suicides and well that was an overhyped disappointment. The Marriage Plot is shaping up to be one of the worst books I read this year. So obviously I was apprehensive about starting this. But I did. And I liked it.

What can I say, it’s a good book! Praise the baby Jesus, Jeffrey Eugenides wrote a good book! This is a perfectly fine novel. It held my interest all the way through and I actually wanted to know what happened as the novel ...more

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Apr 14, 2008 Madeline rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: the-list, all-time-favorites, kids-and-young-adult

A storytelling hermaphrodite chronicles his family's history beginning with his grandparent's emmigration from Turkey to the US in the 1920s.
Incest. Mythology. Dysfunctional Greek families. Explosive secrets. Humor in the most unexpected places. Drugs. Sex. Hippies. Riots. Hitchhikers. The Illiad.

WHY AREN'T YOU OUT THE DOOR YET? GO. BOOKSTORE. PURCHASE. READ. YOU'RE WELCOME.

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Jul 05, 2011 Megan Baxter rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This was my second time reading Middlesex, and I have to admit I approached it with some trepidation, wondering if I would enjoy it as much the second time, if I would be as swept up in the story, if, indeed, it would hold up.

Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the recent changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.

In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook

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Feb 03, 2008 Martine rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: psychological-drama, modern-fiction, north-american, family-drama, glbt

I'm torn on this book. On the one hand, I loved the story, which is, as another reviewer put it, 'the greatest, most incestuous Greek epic since the Iliad'. On the other hand, I had serious problems with some of the writing. I haven't seen my quibbles mentioned anywhere else, so I guess I'm alone on them. Or am I?

In a nutshell, Middlesex is the story of Cal, a Greek American who was born a hermaphrodite and raised as a girl before finally realising he was boy as a teenager. In about five hundred I'm torn on this book. On the one hand, I loved the story, which is, as another reviewer put it, 'the greatest, most incestuous Greek epic since the Iliad'. On the other hand, I had serious problems with some of the writing. I haven't seen my quibbles mentioned anywhere else, so I guess I'm alone on them. Or am I?

In a nutshell, Middlesex is the story of Cal, a Greek American who was born a hermaphrodite and raised as a girl before finally realising he was boy as a teenager. In about five hundred occasionally brilliant pages, Cal traces back his family history (which is rife with inbreeding) to see how he came to be the sort of almost-male he is. In so doing, he not only paints a loving picture of the memorable and colourful Stephanides clan, whose men have rather special ways of wooing women, but of a changing world, all the way from the Greek part of early-twentieth-century Turkey through mid-twentieth-century Detroit to post-Wall Berlin. What with its focus on different conflicts in different eras, the book is quite epic in scope. Yet it is also quite personal, with the social and racial conflicts played out in the world at large reflecting the much more private conflict that is going on within Cal. Both the epic and the intimate aspects of the novel are funny, poignant and tragic, and for that Jeffrey Eugenides deserves applause. Lots of it.

But. But. But.

I have to admit to finding Eugenides an awfully inconsistent writer. While he undeniably has a flair for story-telling, he also has a mad tendency to change tenses and perspectives, to the point where it actually quite took me out of the story. I dislike stories which switch back and forth between past tense and present tense within a matter of paragraphs at the best of times; if these stories also come equipped with narrators who constantly switch points of view, I get annoyed. And this is exactly what happens in Middlesex. Not only is Cal an omniscient first-person narrator who shares with the reader details from older relatives' lives which he has no way of knowing, but he also has a maddening tendency to randomly refer to himself in the third person, which results in sudden bursts of 'Calliope this' and 'Calliope that' in what is essentially a first-person narrative. To a certain extent, I can see why Cal would do this, looking back from a distance at a person he used to be but no longer is, but still, I found it annoying, so much so that I occasionally found myself wanting to scream at the narrator to drop all that third-person shit and stick with the first person, for God's sake. I don't like feeling like shouting at narrators, so that's where one star went. The other one I deducted for the weak ending, which felt rather rushed to me after the perfectly lavish set-up. Is it me, or would Middlesex have been a better book with slightly more information on what happened to Cal between the ages of 17 and 41? With an actual, you know, ending and all that?

I'll stop complaining here to end on a positive note. Despite my quibbles, I enjoyed most of Middlesex -- especially the first half, which is superb. I quite like Eugenides' brand of modern mythology, so I think I'll give The Virgin Suicides a shot, too. I rather liked the film, so I'm actually quite surprised I haven't read the book yet...
...more

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Feb 13, 2016 Julie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: pulitzer-prize-for-fiction-winner, michigan

If you're the type of person who covers your eyes as you watch a sex scene in a movie, this may not be the book for you. Some of the lovin' here is graphic and unconventional, and it's easy to squirm around in discomfort.

But, if you love good storytelling, great storytelling, you may be willing to overlook a few less than ideal feelings in your intestines.

Eugenides is an exceptional writer, and I marveled at some of his images. His writing is fresh and different and inviting. But, more than ...more

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Apr 01, 2014 Barbara rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Calliope (Cal) Stephanides, born after World War II, was raised as a girl until the teenage years. Then, at 14, puberty kicked in and Cal matured into a boy. Doctors found that Cal was a hermaphrodite with male (XY) sex chromosomes, intersex genitals, and a recessive genetic mutation that messes with the sex hormones.

But Cal's story (and genetic troubles) started long before, in 1922, when his Greek grandparents lived in Smyrna, Turkey. Unable to find suitable mates a brother and sister - ...more

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About Jeffrey Eugenides

Jeffrey Eugenides

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Jeffrey Kent Eugenides is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and short story writer of Greek and Irish extraction.

Eugenides was born in Detroit, Michigan, of Greek and Irish descent. He attended Grosse Pointe's private University Liggett School. He took his undergraduate degree at Brown University, graduating in 1983. He later earned an M.A. in Creative Writing from Stanford University.

In ...more