Synopses & Reviews
A dazzling triumph from the bestselling author of The Virgin Suicides--the astonishing tale of a gene that passes down through three generations of a Greek-American family and flowers in the body of a teenage girl.In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry blond clasmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them--along with Callie's failure to develop--leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.
The explanation for this shocking state of affairs takes us out of suburbia- back before the Detroit race riots of 1967, before the rise of the Motor City and Prohibition, to 1922, when the Turks sacked Smyrna and Callie's grandparents fled for their lives. Back to a tiny village in Asia Minor where two lovers, and one rare genetic mutation, set in motion the metamorphosis that will turn Callie into a being both mythical and perfectly real: a hermaphrodite.
Spanning eight decades--and one unusually awkward adolescence- Jeffrey Eugenides's long-awaited second novel is a grand, utterly original fable of crossed bloodlines, the intricacies of gender, and the deep, untidy promptings of desire. It marks the fulfillment of a huge talent, named one of America's best young novelists by both Granta and The New Yorker.
Review
"[I]t's off proportionally, both section-to-section and overall, its two halves at odds, each interesting at times but neither truly satisfying, despite Eugenides's prodigious talent. Like Cal, it's damned by its own abundance, not quite sure what it wants to be." Stewart O'Nan, Atlantic Monthly (read the entire )
Review
"Here's your heads-up....Yes, it's that good....A novel of chance, family, sex, surgery, and America, it contains multitudes." Jonathan Miles, Men's Journal
Review
"If Middlesex were simply a novel about a hermaphrodite who is raised as a woman and then decides to be a man, it would still be a comic tome thats equal parts freaky and funny. But this sophomore offering...is much more....Finally, a book for the literate and the lascivious alike." Bill Gaines, Maxim
Review
"Middlesex isn't just a respectable sophomore effort; it's a towering achievement, and it can now be stated unequivocally that Eugenides' initial triumph wasn't a one-off or a fluke. He has emerged as the great American writer that many of us suspected him of being." Jeff Turrentine, The Los Angeles Times
Synopsis
In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school, Grosse Pointe, MI, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry-blonde classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them - along with Callie's failure to develop - leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. The explanation for this shocking state of affairs takes us out of suburbia - back before the Detroit race riots of 1967, before the rise of the Motor City, to 1922, when the Turks sacked Smyrna and Callie's grandparents fled for their lives, back to a tiny village in Asia Minor where two lovers, and one rare genetic mutation, set in motion the metamorphosis that will turn Callie into a being both mythical and perfectly real: a hermaphrodite.
Sprawling across eight decades - and one unusually awkward adolescence - Jeffrey Eugenide's long-awaited second novel is a grand, utterly original fable of crossed bloodlines, the intricacies of gender, and the deep, untidy promptings of desire.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Audie Award for best unabridged fiction, Middlesex marks the fulfillment of a huge talent, named one of America's best young novelists by both Granta and The New Yorker.
About the Author
Jeffrey Eugenides grew up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and attended Brown University. His first novel,
The Virgin Suicides, was published by FSG to great acclaim in 1993, and he has received numerous awards for his work. He lives in Berlin, Germany, with is wife and daughter.
Kristoffer Tabori has been involved in the world of television, film and theatre since he was six years old. As a director he won an Emmy, was nominated for a DGA award, and was the recipient of The Theatre World Award, The LA Drama Critics Circle Award, the LA Weekly Award, and ten Drama-logue Awards. He has lent his voice to a number of films including
Alpha Protocol,
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - Ultimate Sith Edition,
Endwar, and
Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. Kristoffer has read a range of Earphones Award-winning audiobooks. His work includes narrating Jeffrey Eugenides's
Middlesex, Jack Finny's
Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and the compilation
Tales for a Stormy Night.