BOOK REVIEW

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Pulitzer Prize

(Brought to you by kat impatientreader.com)  Middlesex opens with the ramblings and musings of our 41 year-old hero Cal who yearns to pen the sprawling epic of what he is and how he came to be.  He's going to ramble and muse a lot, readers, so buckle your seatbelts and get used to it. We learn that he's Greek-American, born in Detroit in 1960.  His close-knit, traditional family includes paternal grandparents living in the attic. He has an older brother named Chapter Eleven (don't ask – it's never explained).

Most startling of all: Cal is a hermaphrodite.  He gets this revelation out of the way on the first page.  He was born "a girl" in 1960 and raised as little Calliope until a trip to the emergency room when he's 14 reveals some male sex characteristics. He becomes a research subject to a famous doctor. Ultimately, he chooses to be a male. But we won't get to that for most of the book. 

Cal wants to start in a leisurely fashion with several cozy, heart-warming Greek-American scenes.  Impatient readers everywhere may start hyperventilating as I did, but you might as well give in and appreciate the fine writing.

His parents, trying to produce a daughter they can name Calliope, tempt the fates by manipulating ovulation and womb temperature. Grandma Desdemona gets out the magic spoon that she swings over pregnant women like a pendulum to predict their unborn babies' sex.  Guess what? For the first time ever, the spoon refuses to perform. Then it uncertainly indicates a daughter.  The Stephanides family is overjoyed.

This plunges us into the Greek immigrant story of grandparents Desdemona and Lefty.  It soon becomes apparent that they personally have destabilized the Stephanides gene pool, which may have paved the way for Cal the hermaphrodite.  I'll leave you to discover how. 

They narrowly escape the Turkish massacre of the Greeks and Armenians in the city of Smyrna.  (This part gives Middlesex a quick infusion of action.)  They take a lo-oo-ong sea voyage to America. They join distant relatives in Detroit where Lefty dabbles in assembly-line work at Henry Ford's factory, and then moves on to bootlegging in the 1920s. Desdemona cooks plates and plates of Greek food.

Well, okay then! Back to Cal's story, right? 

No, first Desdemona needs to give birth to Cal's dad Milton. The stock market must crash and the Great Depression must begin! Desdemona needs to find work.  Fortunately, this leads to one of the more fascinating parts of Middlesex:  her employment with – I'm not kidding – the Nation of Islam.

To apply for the sewing job, Desdemona must venture into the frighteningly unknown territory of black-ghetto Detroit. She finds a meeting hall guarded by black men wearing impeccable suits, high-gloss shoes – and fezzes. The hiring manager, Sister Wanda, is wearing a chador. 

Sister Wanda likes Desdemona, but the rules forbid hiring white people.  However, she's thrilled to learn that Desdemona was born in Turkey. Why, she's practically a Muslim, sort of! Desdemona gets the job.  Women are not allowed to benefit from the sermons of the Leader, but she hears his hypnotic voice anyway through the heat-vents as she works.  When she finally gets to meet Wallace Fard Muhammad, it's a real shocker because we've already met him elsewhere in the book.

We resurface briefly to join 41 year-old Cal in the present in Austria.  While telling his story to us, he's also trying to muster the courage to impart his big secret to his new girlfriend Julie.  This is by far the least interesting part of Middlesex.

Back to the past we go to experience in great detail the growing up, courtship, and Second World War experiences of Cal's parents Tessie and Milton. Finally, little Calliope is born and baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church.

I'll leave you to read about Cal's childhood.  You will get to experience a first-rate and extremely exciting section about the 1967 riots in Detroit.  You will feel real suspense through Callie's time as a research subject when it seems that her doctor and her parents are inadvertently forcing her towards a decision she will regret.  But you will also have to page through lots of unremarkable scenes of schooldays and suburbia.

Though Middlesex started slow and remained a leisurely journey, I'm glad I read it.  The good parts were so good that they dragged the book up to a four-star rating, and the rest of it was well-done if verbose. If you're Greek-American, however, you're probably going to absolutely love it.  Middlesex can be found on Amazon through this link:

Middlesex: A Novel

Noteworthy Links:   Wonderquest - Science Q/A! The Connection - Tech blog! Author site - John the Eunuch Historical Mystery series, Cozy Mystery List for all your cozy mystery needs, Obsidian Bookshelf - reviews of gay-themed fiction.
Impatient Reader is not responsible for content found through offsite links.