“At the age of forty-one, l feel another birth coming on.”
-Calliope Stephanides-
Publisher: Picador
Publication: June 5, 2007 (1st edition in 2002)
Page Number: 544 pages
Jeffrey Eugenides wrote Middlesex after The Virgin Suicides, which the latter was adapted into a movie in 1999. This is his second novel out of three novels and two short stories compilations written so far. Eugenides is currently a Professor of Creative Writing at Princeton. Middlesex is about being born one way, but not wanting to be that person later, and making the changes necessary to be comfortable in your skin. The protagonist, Calliope Stephanides, exposes family secrets everyone else wants to keep hidden long after they had left their home country. The story traverses back and forth from a tiny village in Asia Minor to Detroit, Michigan, highlighting immigration ordeals, and the study of sexual norms and practices. It is also partly a coming of age story because where Calliope started is vastly different from where she was by book’s end, and partly neutral referencing of political events happening around her during this growth period in America. Despite it being a little thicker book, it is rich in content and well written.
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