Sophia C. reviewed on 7/6/2011 + 289 more book reviews

Middlesex is a sprawling family saga. To treat it as solely the bildungsroman of the male psuedohermaphrodite narrator would lead to disappointment. Cal Stephanides takes about 200 pages to trace three generations of his Greek-American family. From the grandparents' escape from a tiny village in Asia Minor to Detroit to Cal's prepubescent existence as Calliope and subsequent transformation, sometimes Eugenides waxes too poetic about biology. He dangles bits of present Cal's life, a lonesome middle-aged Foreign Service Officer, throughout the long narration, but I actually enjoyed the "backstory" more than Cal's transformation which was a bit rushed and not satisfyingly explanatory. Nonetheless, I think Eugenides mostly fulfilled the potential of this story about assimilation, transformation, and gender.

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