Emily May's Reviews > Middlesex

“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.”

I'd heard Middlesex was about a character who was born intersex and raised as a girl - a compelling enough premise on its own - but I didn't realize this book was a rich, complex family drama, spanning multiple generations and featuring heavy subjects like incest, immigration, family secrets and twentieth-century America.

It seems some readers were disappointed about this and wanted more from our protagonist and narrator, but I honestly love these kind of stories. So many characters came in and out of this novel, and were in turns likeable, deserving of sympathy, annoying and downright insufferable (but kind of in a good way). I love it when authors create such well-drawn individuals who feel so completely real and alive - it makes me far more invested in their stories.

And there is so much going on here. We are taken on a journey of familial (and genetic) history, from a small Greek village to Detroit (prohibition, race riots and many cultural changes) to suburban Michigan. Eugenides allows Cal to explore his identity and come to terms with who he is by taking his story way back to the beginning. Back before he questioned his gender; back before he was even conceived.

I actually quite liked the idea that a person has been years in the making long before they're born. That our stories begin way before us in far off lands, in communities and societies that are foreign to us. Not to get too cheesy, but there's something pleasantly overwhelming about novels that make me feel small amid the vast expanse of the universe.

I really liked it. I liked the science. I liked the history. And I really liked the novel's humanity - all these unforgettable characters each having an important part to play in the story of Calliope "Cal" Stephanides.

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