Middlesex

As women, we remember the anxiety of our first menstrual period; the anticipation of our first kiss; and the first time we realized we weren't the only awkward girl in our class. Calliope Stephanides, like most of us, shares those universal feelings and experiences. The only difference is that Calliope or 'Cal' is actually a boy.

Only he doesn't know it. Not yet.

Author Jeffrey Eugenides won his well-deserved 2003 Pulitzer Prize for his second novel Middlesex, a beautiful, sweeping story of a mutated gene that travels through three generations of a Greek-American family. Cal is medically known as a hermaphrodite and narrates his life as if he were sitting with you at some busy caf» just shootin' the breeze. And just like in regular conversation, he forgets key elements and excuses himself as he backtracks to bring you up-to-date on his culturally rich family.

Middlesex opens with Cal as a forty-one year old man. He tells of his birth and how, like a fly on the wall, he watched himself being conceived. Now can you imagine if you were there when you were being conceived? The stories you would have to tell? He even describes his development in utero. When Cal is born, to everyone's eyes including the physician, he is a baby girl. Besides, grandma Desdemona predicted he would be a girl (by dangling a spoon over his mother's pregnant belly). By appearance alone there is no doubt that Cal is female and she continues to mature (mentally) into adolescence. It is during this period of inadequacy and sexual-awakening when she begins to feel something is not quite right with her body, and she begins the ritual of disguise; duping her gym teacher into thinking she's taken the mandatory showers after class; not letting any boys (or girls) get too close to her; and when her menstruation fails to commence, she and her mother light votives at church wishing and praying for God to make her a woman.

With meticulous detail and sensitivity, Mr. Eugenides writes of memorable life events, traditional rituals and well developed, if slightly eccentric, characters; I can still see Desdemona, taken to bed and threatening to join her husband in heaven. Still lying there after what seems like years, tormenting everyone, she just can't accept the American way of life, but that's what makes her so endearing; Milton Stephanides, Cal's dad, chasing his brother-in-law, Father Michael, after learning he stole his money. As Mr. Stephanide's car drives off the bridge, you can see his car flying in slow motion over the ocean, his life playing in front of him as saliva snakes out of his mouth (because it's open in disbelief). I was waiting for him turn his head and wave back at me; And Cal: I really cared about Cal. When an accident lands him in the hospital and everyone learns his secret, you just want to take him and protect him. Refusing surgery or misrepresentation, he learns to handle it all with keen intelligence and sassy aplomb. I don't care that Cal is a fictional character (although based on case studies): I want to know what he's doing now. I want him to be happy and have good people in his life. I want more of his story.

Divided into four sectional books, Middlesex - which refers to the street the Stephanides live on - is a coming-of-age and a coming into being story. With an even balance of comedy and drama, history is seen through immigrant eyes as we trek back to Asia Minor where Cal recounts the war with the Turks that destroyed his ancestors' city and forced his grandparents, Lefty and Desdemona Stephanides (who are really brother and sister, by the way) to seek refuge in America; we see the birth of Henry Ford's empire and the evolution of the Motor City; we're in the midst of the smoke and ash of the '67 Detroit race riots; and you can practically smell the patchouli wafting up through the air as we escape into San Francisco's hippie culture where Cal begins living as a man. We're also given a pretty significant course in the study of inter-sexuality.

Middlesex is expansive, lively and warmly witty. I love this book, but I have one question for Mr. Eugenides: Why is Cal's brother called Chapter Eleven? I can't figure it out and I gotta know!