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Monday, February 4, 2008

MIDDLESEX by Jeffrey Eugenides

Middlesex was an "Oprah's Book Club" selection for summer reading in 2007. I picked it up for that reason. I love Oprah and appreciate all that she does and tries to do with all she has to give. Not only resources, but connections and so forth. Ah, but I digress here. =)

Middlesex is the name of the community where the story takes place, though is also the topic of the book. The main character, Calliope tells her story of how she came to be, going back as far as her grandparents in the old country. She is following genetics more so than persons, the genetics that caused her to be who she was, a hermaphrodite. The narrator, Calliope, blames her confused orientation on a gene that had it's start back in Greece and worked it's way forward. This book reviewer can't help but feel that the fact that her grandparents, Lefty and Desdemona Stephanides, were brother and sister, just may have played a part in it too.

The family story is followed from Smyrna, Greece to America, to the family members there and those that were to come. To the birth of Calliope with her strange gene, and her brother lovingly referred to as "Chapter Eleven".

The story then follows Colliope's development, the many opportunities for doctors to discover that she was different, but didn't. Our author, Eugenides, is brilliant in the way he handles the progression of Colliope's personality. Once in her teens she falls in love with another girl which causes her a great deal of confusion. Calliope is a boy genetically , after all, but doesn't know it. From birth he has been physically raised as a girl.

A series of events lead to the discovery of Colliope's uniqueness at the age of 14.The parents and doctors decide to operate and make Calliope the girl that "she was meant to be". I shall leave that right there, and let you read for yourself what happens. Again, Eugenides is a brilliant author and tells this whole story as none other could.

Needless to say, the topic of this book is a difficult one to handle, and the author did an amazing job at keeping my interest throughout. I can't recommend it to you highly enough. I came away feeling I had learned a lot about some issues I didn't know a thing about. Besides being entertained, isn't that why we read, after all?

Until next time,

Mary

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