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Middlesex

by Jeffrey Eugnides

May 2004

Synopsis

"Middlesex tells 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 1967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Point, 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." (Publisher)

Pulitzer Prize Winner

Reviews

"[Eugenides] is well on his way to becoming a spectacular mythologist, attaching some of our most enduring riddles with heroic energy, keen wit, and genuine compassion...Everyone we meet in Middlesex is vibrantly alive....Eugenides has taken the greatest mystery of all--What are we, exactly, and where do we come from?--and crafted a story that manages to be both illuminating and transcendent." (The Los Angeles Times Book Review)
"[Middlesex is] one of the most impressive American novels....Eugenides has created a spirited, high-energy comic epic. At once remarkably readable, intelligent, and moving, Middlesex becomes that rare cultural hybrid, a page-turner that wows the critics." (Newsday)
"A big book so wildly imaginiatve...and yet so warm-hearted that it's hard to resist...it is frequently hilarious and touching." USA Today

Book Club Rating and Comments

If you or your book club has read this book and would like to share your comments, please email us at upthecreekbc@yahoo.com.

Other Books by Jeffrey Eugenides

'The Virgin Suicides'