Middlesex - Pulitzer Prize novel - epic Greek American tale

There is something not quite right about Calliope Stephanides, and “Middlesex” is about her journey of discovery. The story covers three generations of her Greek-American family starting in a small Greek village and ending on the doorstep of the Detroit home where Calliope grew up and never quite fit in.

“Middlesex” opens with the Turkish invasion of small villages around Mount Olympus. Desdemonia and Lefty are war orphans faced with sure death if they can’t manage to board a ship headed for the United States. The brother and sister board the boat posing as French nationals and end up becoming husband and wife over the course of the journey to the new world. This intermarriage worries Desdemonia, but she does take comfort in the familiar while keeping this dark family secret.

When Milton is borne to the incestuous couple, Desdemonia checks carefully. She looks for any sign of physical or mental deformity. It seems that her son is perfect and that the curse of mingled blood lines has spared the young and struggling couple. In fact, Milton goes on to buy out the family restaurant and to turn the little diner investment into a franchised operation called Hercules Hot Dogs. The days of living on the fringes in a city with race riots and bussing are memories only for the Stephanides as Milton moves the family out to the suburbs and into a cash-up-front home on the edges of an affluent suburb.

The grandparents join Milton and his growing family in the quirky homeplace on the right side of the tracks. Milton and his cousin have married and have two children—Chapter Eleven and Calliope. The siblings are not particularly close, so Callie grows up rather isolated. In fact, it seems that she has only two close friends over the course of her childhood. The little girl who lives briefly behind the Stephanides home introduces Callie to some sexual play in the pool, and Callie becomes intimate with her high school buddy over the course of a summer.

Callie understands that her attraction to females is socially deviant, but this is not her main concern. It seems that her genitals are different from those of other girls. Callie has sensed this from an early age and becomes quite adept at dressing without exhibiting any flesh. When she fails to begin menstruating, she begins to read and to suspect that she is not what she seems.

Though the doctor should have noted the genital abnormalities at birth, he did not. The family doctor came from the old country as well and lost his entire family before catching the boat to the United States. As a close family friend and familiar face from the past, he took care of all medical concerns over the years. When Callie is in an accident, an emergency room doctor detects the physical problems and blows the whistle on this oversight.

During the 70s, psychologists hypothesized that gender identification was a product of upbringing. Though Callie clearly was genetically male with undescended testicles and a small, rather undeveloped penis, the specialist determines that Callie is, for all practical purposes, female. To spare the family, he indicates that Callie has an overlarge cl*toris and that some hormones and surgery will easily correct the problem. The plan is to remove the questionable appendage and to begin a treatment program to feminize Callie.

When Callie sneaks a peak at her medical chart, she becomes frightened. She packs a suitcase and runs away rather than face surgery which could leave her likely with no sexual drive. At age 14, she can’t imagine a world with no sexual sensation, since she has known the pleasure of sexual stimulation. This is unacceptable. She would rather be ambiguous in terms of her sexuality than to be nonsexual. But, Callie’s hope is to live her life as a man and to reclaim her “born” status. She cuts her hair, buys a suit, and she becomes one of many children living on the streets in San Francisco. Even here, she is considered a freak. She ends up being part of a sex show where men pay money to look at her odd physical characteristics.

Ultimately, Callie returns to her ancestral land as Cal, but the journey is obviously not complete at the end of the novel. A deathbed trip back to the United States and a vigil help put some of the puzzle pieces in place but do not provide any real answers for the future. After all, this is new territory, and society has been most unwilling to expand visions of sexuality to include those not clearly male or female.

Though the story is focused on and told by Callie and though the theme is hermaphroditism, this book is much more than a peek through a crack in the bathroom wall. History is woven in with a glimpse at both sides of the world and with an emphasis on the transition from a rather primitive culture to one on the brink of great changes. Readers get a taste of Greek life in the early 20th century and mythology from days long gone as well as an overview of the Civil Rights movement in the United States and the shift from the Depression era to an age of prosperity.

The most disconcerting thing about “Middlesex” is the narration of an epic by a character in the story. Callie gives background and details from the past that could only be known and fairly told by those having lived through those years. In fact, the author must have sensed the problems early on and included an odd explanation: “I feel myself shift, already losing bits of my prenatal omniscience, tumbling toward the blank slate of personhood.” The reader is expected to buy this idea that Callie is an all knowing creature with an eye for all that has gone prior to conception. She then settles in as a here-and-now personality with no special abilities in terms of time and space travel. This I found to be very jarring. It seems that a third person narrator for the historical sections would be more in keeping with a rational telling of the story.

I also felt that the author, Jeffrey Eugenides, had some preconceived notions about female lesbianism and, at times, forced titillating male fantasies off on his main character. True. Callie was born male though lived female. But, some of these stories did not ring true. For example, it stuck me as odd that the only interactions of note between Callie and other girls were sexual in nature. While this may have been a way to foreshadow Callie’s male genetic make up, it seemed a bit gratuitous to place a pre-adolescent in the pool for sex play and to place the best friend in the role of rather uninvolved lover. If these scenes had been balanced with some more casual interactions, they would have played better.

Overall, the book is interesting and very well written. The story line is complex and compelling if a tad overdramatic at times. I can see why this sweeping cultural and social tale rated a Pulitzer Prize, and I would predict that this work of fiction will have staying power.