by skelly
Type: fiction
Status: neutral
Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
2007-11-30
book
Middlesex: A Novel
Raised as a girl by her second-generation Greek-American family, Calliope (now Cal) Stephanides is physiologically a hermaphrodite and is more male than female. That's not giving away much -- Cal explains it on the first page. What's remarkable is that a book can start with such a revelation and still manage to be full of surprises. Narrated by Cal, the story also shares the thoughts, feelings, and intimate details of the lives of Cal's grandparents, parents, and other family members. In this omniscient first-person mode, we get an epic family saga, a journey from 1920s Greece to 1960s Detroit to contemporary Europe -- one that leads to a remarkably satisfying conclusion. To understand anyone, Eugenides seems to be implying, we need to know not only his or her (or in this case, "his/her") inner thoughts, but also those of all the ancestors whose DNA has contributed to the mix that created him/her.
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by whitekl
Type: fiction
Status: favorite
Author: unknown
Tags: fiction immigrants adolescence genes outsiders intersex
2007-08-02
by lp31700
Type: fiction
Status: to read
Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Description: Raised as a girl by her second-generation Greek-American family, Calliope (now Cal) Stephanides...
2007-07-05
by credo
Type: fiction
Status: to read
Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Tags: AwardPulitzer.Winner
2006-11-23