Thursday, May 24, 2007

20. Middlesex

by Jeffrey Eugenides (544 pgs)

Rating: 4

Cal Stephanides was raised as Calliope for the first 16 years of his life. Cal is a hermaphrodite. No one knew, not even Cal. The novel goes back three generations explaining how this unlikely recessive trait ended up in Cal. It traces his grandparent's flight from Greece, to his parents and their life in Detroit, all the way up to Cal's own childhood and discovery of hi unique physiology.

There are some graphic bits in here, but nothing I would consider offensive. There are parts that are enthralling and there are bits that are draggingly slow. Given the size, it took me a fairly large chunk of time to finish reading this. The characters are extremely well portrayed and the explanation for how some things happened was pretty believable. I had an additional draw in that I was raised in and about the Detroit areas where it was set. The description of the race riots was very interesting for me.

Recommended for people interested in gender identity issues and people who live in Detroit.

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