Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides

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. Specialized readers may have come across me in Dr. Peter Luce's study, "Gender Identity in -Alpha-Reductase Pseudohermaphrodites," published in the Journal of Pediatric Endocrinology in 1975. Or maybe you've seen my photograph in chapter sixteen of the now sadly outdated Genetics and Heredity. That's me on page 78, standing naked beside a height chart with a black box covering my eyes.

This Pulitzer-prize winning book is an amazing piece of writing. The author presents a seamless inter-generational tale that remains compelling from start to finish. I can't recall a book which contains such a wide spectrum of people and events over time that never bogs down in the telling. A thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening piece of writing.

The main character becomes a person the reader can completely relate to, in spite of the fact he is a hermaphrodite. With a late developing form of hermaphroditism, his tale of maturing is unique. The author, however, is able to take us on this strange journey making it seem less than strange. The subjects covered-- grandparents growing up on a small Greek island, parents establishing themselves in American life, the city of Detroit in its glory and its decline, race riots, lower class neighborhoods, upper class suburbia, runaway in San Francisco, generational changes, and more, could be the subject of several books. The brilliance of Eugenides is to weave this all into an original tale of growing up. Most highly recommended!