Jeffrey Eugenides - "Middlesex"

     I hope the Holidays are treating everyone well!  I know that some of the time off has afforded me some time to plow through a few extra books :)  Always a bonus!

     I have been working on "Middlesex" now for a couple of weeks.  Overall I generally have mixed feelings about the book, but I did enjoy reading it once I was about a third of the way through.  I was kind of on the fence both about the style of writing as well as the content, though, as I neared the end, I think I can admit that both had grown on me over the course of the 500+ pages.  I'm not a HUGE fan of the book, but it definitely met my criteria of, "I need something 'different' to read right now...hmmm?"

     Although this is the story about Calliope Stephanides, a Greek-American girl born in Detroit in 1960, it is also the story of the two generations before her and their unique journeys.  The book is a narrative by Cal, a forty-one-year-old man living in Europe and working for the US government as an ambassador.  He wants to tell his story and decides to start beond the beginning.  After he introduces himself, he launches into his entangled family history opening with his grandparents Lefty and Desdimonda Stephanides and their tiny little town in Greece at the turn of the century.  It tells of their hardship there, and their harried and necessary emigration to Detroit in the early 1920's.

     Upon arriving in Detroit, Lefty and Desdemona live with cousin Sourmalina and her bootlegging husband.  Through many twists, turns, and various other situations, they raise two children Zoe and Milton.  Milton grows up to serve in the US military through WWII, start a family (including Callie), fall in love with Cadillac cars, and start a restaurant empire (Hercules Hot Dog stands).

           by Jeffrey Eugenides (Author)Middlesex: A Novel (Paperback)

     Now we finally arrive at Calliope's turn to be the star.  She grows up as a normal girl who loves her family, has excellent grades, is annoyed by her older brother, and is just trying to survive junior high.  Aside from being a bit of a "late bloomer" everything seems to be normal.  After realizing that she may be a little different than the other girls, she becomes a bit of a loner, but is unwilling to believe that anything is wrong.  Only after an accident that lands her in the hospital is her secret revealed.  Although at birth she appeared to be a normal little girl, puberty launched a few changes that revealed another truth entirely.

     The last few chapters detail how Cal (formerly Callie) began to cope with this new reality.  As he details his first few tragic months of learning to live as a male, you get a glimpse of the darker side of San Francisco in the 1970's as well.  All throughout the book, there are brief interjections that update you of his current life as he tells you of his past.

     Again, all in all, I think it was an ok book, but it took a little "try" to get through the first third or so of the story.  From the get-go, I had a hard time with the vast amount of detail in which Mr. Eugenides described every bit of the story; towards the end, I had accepted this fact of his particular writing style.  He has a truly unique way of using words to bring images to the readers' minds; it's quite poetic.  You also have to give him kudos for writing an entire epic novel from the perspective of a hermaphrodite.  That had to be quite an undertaking! 

     I did really enjoy "experiencing" what it was like to live through a lot of the different historical happenings that these characters went through.  I know it's a work of fiction, but the author did an outstanding job of really making you feel like you were right there in the story.  (I guess all of those details did indeed serve a purpose???)  There were certainly some very tragic elements to the story, as well as some parts that were hard to read due to the nature of the unusual content, but Mr. Eugenides handles a lot of these issues with a measure of poetic vernacular (as opposed to solely literal and graphic terminology).

     This work sated my need for something, "off the beaten path" for sure, but I'm not certain if it's something that I would wholeheartedly push someone to read.  I leave you to decide...

     Happy Holidays to one and all!