Middlesex Book: Jeffrey Eugenides Author (Oprah’s Book Club)

In Middlesex, book writer Jeffrey Eugenides shares an intriguing tale of a young girl who is finding things about herself that she is not quite prepared for. Author Eugenides first caught the attention of readers, with his story, The Virgin Suicides by presenting themes that are both disturbing yet intriguing. He earned the Pulitzer Prize for Middlesex – establishing his reputation as an edgy author with an ability to imbue scenes of ordinariness and nostalgia with an otherworldly importance.

The story begins in the tiny Greek village of Bithynios in 1922. Lefty and Desdemona Stephanides, Calliope’s grandparents, grow up, flee to the port of Smyrna, and then, during their passage to the United States, the Stephanideses make a rash decision. Acting on an incestuous passion, they start their new life by declaring themselves as husband and wife, not brother and sister as they know each other to be.

The narrator and main character, Calliope Helen Stephanides, is a bright schoolgirl and coddled daughter of a hard-working Greek family who own a chain of hotdog stands in Detroit. Calliope, in her introduction into puberty, does not find the usual development of womanly curves. Instead what develops is a masculinity, a husky voice and shadow of a mustache which is of course shocking and unsuspected. Calliope is the rarest form of hermaphrodite. From a two-sided view as well as the obvious odd experiences, she is prompted to write about her roller coaster ride.

From there, the reader is served with many conflicting emotions, including compassion, and is presented with vivid references in literary style being told from a point of view not like what we are used to. In true style of the author, the story may have you shifting uneasily in your seat but you still have to see the story to the end.