Middlesex

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides is a story that sweeps you up completely. It's a multigenerational family story told through the eyes of Cal, who was born intersex and later uncovers the truth about his identity.

When born, Cal's doctor misses the fact that he has tiny male genitals, so Cal is raised as a female. However, as Cal reaches puberty, his male side begins to emerge, and his quest for the truth about his real identity begins.

What really makes this book stand out is Cal's voice as he narrates his story. It's warm and witty with a mix of humor and honesty as he reflects on his life.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed the book, it was a little too long, and I would have also liked more about Cal's life after he comes to terms with his identity. Book clubs will love this - I know mine did, as well as anyone who loves family drama and thought-provoking themes.

Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

A dazzling triumph from the bestselling author of The Virgin Suicides--the astonishing tale of a gene that passes down through three generations of a Greek-American family and flowers in the body of a teenage girl.

"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974... My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver's license...records my first name simply as Cal."

So begins 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 l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.

From the publisher

Macmillan/Picador | Jun 5, 2007 | 544 pages | ISBN:9780312427733 | Literary Fiction

1. Describing his own conception, Cal writes: "The timing of the thing had to be just so in order for me to become the person I am. Delay the act by an hour and you change the gene selection." (p. 11) Is Cal's condition a result of chance or fate? Which of these forces governs the world as Cal sees it?

2. Middlesex begins just before Cal's birth in 1960, then moves backward in time to 1922. Cal is born at the beginning of Book Three, about halfway through the novel. Why did the author choose to structure the story this way? How does this movement backward and forward in time reflect the larger themes of the work?

3. When Tessie and Milton decide to try to influence the sex of their baby, Desdemona disapproves. "God decides what baby is," she says. "Not you." (p.13) What happens when characters in the novel challenge fate?

4. "To be honest, the amusement grounds should be closed at this hour, but, for my own purposes, tonight Electric Park is open all night, and the fog suddenly lifts, all so that my grandfather can look out the window and see a roller coaster streaking down the track. A moment of cheap symbolism only, and then I have to bow to the strict rules of realism, whichis to say: they can't see a thing." (pp. 110-11) Occasionally, Cal interrupts his own narrative, calling attention to himself and the artifice inherent in his story. What purpose do these interruptions serve? Is Cal a reliable narrator?

5. "I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever," Cal writes (p. 217). How does Cal narrate the events that take place before his birth? Does his perspective as a narrator change when he is recounting events that take place after he is born?

6. "All I know is this: despite my androgenized brain, there's an innate feminine circularity in the story I have to tell." (p.20) What does Cal mean by this? Is his manner of telling his story connected to the question of his gender? How?

7. How are Cal's early sexual experiences similar to those of an adolescent? How are they different? Are the differences more significant than the similarities?

8. Why does Cal decide to live as a man rather than as a woman?

9. How does Cal's experience reflect on the "nature vs. nurture" debate about gender identity?

10. Who is Johnny Zizmo? How does he influence the course of events in the novel?

11. What is Dr. Luce's role in the novel? Would you describe him as a villain?

12. Calliope is the name the classical Greek muse of eloquence and epic poetry. What elements of Greek mythology figure in Cal's story? Is this novel meant to be a new myth?

13. How is Cal's experience living within two genders similar to the immigrant experience of living within two cultures? How is it different?

14. Middlesex is set against the backdrop of several historical events: the war between Greece and Turkey, the rise of the Nation of Islam, World War II, and the Detroit riots. How does history shape the lives of the characters in the novel?

15. What does America represent for Desdemona? For Milton? For Cal? To what extent do you think these characters' different visions of America correspond to their status as first-, second-, and third-generation Greek Americans?

16. What role does race play in the novel? How do the Detroit riots of 1967 affect the Stephanides family and Cal, specifically?

17. Describe Middlesex. Does the house have a symbolic function in the novel?

18. "Everything about Middlesex spoke of forgetting and everything about Desdemona made plainDesdemona's Old World values conflict with the ethos of America, and, specifically, of Middlesex?

19. The final sentence of the novel reads: "I lost track after a while, happy to be home, weeping for my father, and thinking about what was next." (p. 529) What is next for Cal? Does the author give us reason to believe that Cal's relationship with Julie will be successful?

20. "Watching from the cab, Milton came face-to-face with the essence of tragedy, which is something determined before you're born, something you can't escape or do anything about, no matter how hard you try." (p. 426) According to this definition, is Cal's story a tragedy?

Book Club Talking Points:
Middlesex is an excellent choice for a book club because it will spark conversations about Cal's journey of self-discovery and figuring out who he is. He's a relatable character, and his story prompts essential questions about identity, belonging, and how we define ourselves. The multi-generational family narrative, which is also filled with a lot of immigrant experience, adds depth, especially since it's a current theme today.

"Part Tristram Shandy, part Ishmael, part Holden Caulfield, Cal is a wonderfully engaging narrator... A deeply affecting portrait of one family's tumultuous engagement with the American twentieth century." -The New York Times

"Expansive and radiantly generous... Deliriously American." -The New York Times Book Review (cover review)

"A towering achievement... . [Eugenides] has emerged as the great American writer that many of us suspected him of being." -Los Angeles Times Book Review (cover review)

"A big, cheeky, splendid novel... it goes places few narrators would dare to tread... lyrical and fine." -The Boston Globe

"An epic... This feast of a novel is thrilling in the scope of its imagination and surprising in its tenderness." -People

"Unprecedented, astounding... . The most reliably American story there is: A son of immigrants finally finds love after growing up feeling like a freak." -San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

"Middlesex is about a hermaphrodite in the way that Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel is about a teenage boy... A novel of chance, family, sex, surgery, and America, it contains multitudes." -Men's Journal

"Wildly imaginative... frequently hilarious and touching." -USA Today About the Creators