Middlesex

by

viii, 529 pages ; 24 cm, 529 pages

English language

Published 2002 by Bloomsbury.

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(2 reviews)

This is the tale of a gene that passes down through three generations and flowers in the teenage body of Callie. Thanks to this gene, she begins to realise she is part girl, part boy. What results is a fable of the intricacies of gender and the untidy promptings of desire.

16 editions

reviewed Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

2022 #FReadom read 13/20

I just finished Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex, the 13th book in my 2022 #FReadom reading list of books removed or threatened in Texas libraries and schools. I found Cal Stephanides to be a truly scintillating narrative voice for a fascinating story.

Eugenides offers rich, multithreaded explorations of Detroit, Greek-American family life, and other areas near his own experience. And he may lead some readers to reflect on the meaning of sex & gender, despite rooting the story overall in rather binary notions of gender.

But I believe the novel's insights on gender identity and intersex reality would have been deeper & more insightful had Eugenides actually spoken with intersex people when writing the novel. Sadly, he didn't - a disappointing missed opportunity. www.intersexinitiative.org/popculture/middlesex-faq.html

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