Middlesex

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


My doctor recommended this book to me and I am finding it fascinating. It is about a rare genetic abnormality that causes the main character to be a hermaphrodite. The story starts in the shadow of Mt. Olympus in Asia Minor and concerns the main character's grandparents from whom Callie/Cal gets the gene which sends her/his life careening into the textbooks.

The story is told well, not just as background, but as an exciting glimpse of the lives of ethnic Greeks whose lives are turned upside down by an invasion of the Turks. The brother and sister emigrate to America and end up living in Detroit in a Greek community. Into this community, Callie is born and lives the life of a girl for the first 14 years of her life. Although this portion of the book is actually background for the main focus of the book, it is written in a charming way and the characters are well developed.



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