matt_and_cheez 's review for:

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

4.0

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This story is very unique to anything I've ever read. Cal, the narrator, is born with a recessive genetic mutation as a result of inbreeding among her grandparents and then her parents. The story is told as a chronology of the Stephanides family, beginning in the 20s when the grandparents fled to America. Cal's parents grew up in the WWII generation of a very culturally-mixed Detroit. Cal's generation is a story of the hippy movement and anti-war and racial tension. All of this is mixed with the cultural traditions and family life of the Greek Stephanides. We learn that Cal was born as Calliope, but as she began puberty, realized that something was different about her. Struggling with love for another girl and feeling alienated from the norms of the female sex, she learns that she is a hermaphrodite. She is in essence a boy trapped in a third-gender body, but this theme is but one of many in Middlesex. The underlying retelling of the struggle for the American dream and growing up in the turbulence of the mid 20th century make Middlesex a very rewarding read. It is written very intelligently, with allusions, scientific explanations and raw human emotion.