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Middlesex: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club) | 
 enlarge | Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Publisher: Picador
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $14.99 (100%)
New (70) Used (263) Collectible (8) from $0.01
Rating:  854 reviews
Sales Rank: 2882
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Pages: 544
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 1
ISBN: 0312427735
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780312427733
ASIN: 0312427735
Publication Date: June 5, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
"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." And so begins Middlesex, the mesmerizing saga of a near-mythic Greek American family and the "roller-coaster ride of a single gene through time." The odd but utterly believable story of Cal Stephanides, and how this 41-year-old hermaphrodite was raised as Calliope, is at the tender heart of this long-awaited second novel from Jeffrey Eugenides, whose elegant and haunting 1993 debut, The Virgin Suicides, remains one of the finest first novels of recent memory. Eugenides weaves together a kaleidoscopic narrative spanning 80 years of a stained family history, from a fateful incestuous union in a small town in early 1920s Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit; from the early days of Ford Motors to the heated 1967 race riots; from the tony suburbs of Grosse Pointe and a confusing, aching adolescent love story to modern-day Berlin. Eugenides's command of the narrative is astonishing. He balances Cal/Callie's shifting voices convincingly, spinning this strange and often unsettling story with intelligence, insight, and generous amounts of humor: Emotions, in my experience aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic traincar constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." ... I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. When you get to the end of this splendorous book, when you suddenly realize that after hundreds of pages you have only a few more left to turn over, you'll experience a quick pang of regret knowing that your time with Cal is coming to a close, and you may even resist finishing it--putting it aside for an hour or two, or maybe overnight--just so that this wondrous, magical novel might never end. --Brad Thomas Parsons
Product Description
"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver’s license...records my first name simply as Cal."
So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 849 more reviews...
 A Great Story but No Bang November 5, 2008
Richard Garza
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Well written, interesting, and easy to read. The story is even good, its just that it never had any real climax to it. Sort of like an old western that kept promising something exciting but it never panned out.
 One of my favorites! November 2, 2008
Caroline Kerpen (Little Neck, NY)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Killer book! Starts with a kind of lengthy backstory in Greece, but I actually liked that part a lot. I recommend this to anyone interested in LGBT, or anyone who just wants an interesting and entertaining read.
A Wonderfuf Read October 30, 2008
Jeffrey Cross (Chattanooga, TN)
This is a fantastic novel. A beatifully written, honest look at a slice of the world the is kept hidden from society.
You Are Such a Flirt October 28, 2008
I'm in love with a Kindle (Swampy Gulf Coast)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
What a tease. Have you ever felt like you were teased for so long that the payoff just wasn't as good as the windup? Middlesex teased me for so long, flirted with me, that when the big bang came, I sat there wishing we were still flirting.
That being said, Jeffrey Eugenides is a beautiful writer. I could taste the Greek air and smell the sour streets of Detroit.
The issues in this book were handled with respect, and Eugenides allowed the world's true perceptions to seep in through the character's description of himself.
From a pediatric Urology Nurse's view point, well done October 24, 2008
bookczuk (Charleston, SC)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am a pediatric urology nurse by profession. Intersex was a specialty of the physician I worked with for years. These days, ambiguous genitalia is treated with a great deal of care, compassion and concern. There is a supreme effort at identifying the correct genetic disposition of children too inky to be dinky and to dinky to be inky at birth. Whole courses are taught about it. And despite what the Society for Hermaphrodites with an attitude say, medical professionals try their best not to gender assign someone based on what they think best.
That said, this work of fiction was a great read. I read it when it first came out, and again when I was given a copy years later. I also loved the family history and the glimpse into Greek America, of a sort.
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