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| Product Description |
This memoir tells the story about the author's experience mothering a Down Syndrome child.
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In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry-blonde classmate with a gift for acting....
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In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, 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 physically - leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.<P>The explanation for this shocking state of affairs is a rare genetic mutation - and a guilty secret - that have followed Callie's grandparents from the crumbling Ottoman Empire to Prohibition-era Detroit and beyond, outlasting the glory days of the Motor City, the race riots of 1967, and the family's second migration, into the foreign country known as suburbia. Thanks to the gene, Callie is part girl, part boy. And even though the gene's epic travels have ended, her own odyssey has only begun.<P>Spanning eight decades - and one unusually awkward adolescence - Jeffrey Eugenides' long-awaited second novel is a grand, original f Less
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| Key Information |
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Authors
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Martha Beck
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Benito Gomez Ibanez, Jeffrey Eugenides
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Nonfiction Category
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Biography & Autobiography
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Medical
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Social Science
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Nonfiction Subcategory
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General
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Gynecology & Obstetrics
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Handicapped
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Literary
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Perinatology & Neonatology
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Down Syndrome - Patients
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Parents Of Children With Disabilities
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Fiction Genre
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Fiction
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Fiction Subgenre
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Family & Friendship
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Literary Genres & Types of Novels
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Love, Relationships & Sex
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Peoples & Cultures
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Types of Characters
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Sociology / Urban
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Teenagers
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Anatomy & Physiology (See Also Life Sciences / Human Anatomy & Physiology)
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Ethnic Studies / General
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Human Sexuality
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Literary
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Intersexuality
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Sagas
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Awards
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2002 National Book Critics Circle Award, 2003 Pulitzer Prize
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| Professional Reviews |
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Professional Reviews
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Kirkus: "Even skeptics will find magic in this story, and parents of a Down syndrome child will cherish it.", Cheever, Susan, New York Times Book Review: "EXPECTING ADAM is a glorious example [of a memoir]. Martha Beck is smart, willing to confide in the reader, good at concise description and very funny, particularly about the most serious possible subjects--childbirth, angels, and surviving at Harvard. Parts of this story are hard to believe--psychic experiences, glimpses of metaphysical beings--but Beck's voice is so sympathetic and most of her details so accurate that they frequently carry all before them."
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Bookforum: "[L]et me shake Eugenides's hand and say that MIDDLESEX contains scenes that are as wonderful as written prose can get, and these passages have nothing to do with askew genitalia....MIDDLESEX begins as a neo-Doctorow Depression-era novel, then becomes a Son of John Irving 1950s novel, before ending as a kind of VIRGIN SUICIDES redux.", New York Times Book Review: "[W]hile some of the odds and ends Eugenides tosses into the mix...don't quite integrate, far more often than not the novel feels rich with treats, including some handsome writing....[T]he novel's patron saint is Walt Whitman, and it has some of the shagginess of that poet's verse to go along with the exuberance. But mostly it is a colossal act of curiosity, of imagination and of love.", O'Nan, Stewart, Atlantic Monthly: "MIDDLESEX is consistently whimsical in its scene-setting and use of language, but despite its vaudeville exchanges and niftily isolated punch lines, it's rarely out-and-out funny....[I]ts two halves [are] at odds, each interesting at times but neither truly satisfying, despite Eugenides's prodigious talent."
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| Book Editions |
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Book Editions
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- Paperback
- Reissue
- August 01, 2000
- Berkley Pub Group
- 8.25"(h) x 5"(w) x 0.75"(d), 0.65 lbs.
- 9780425174487
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- Audio - Audio Cassette
- Unabridged
- September 01, 2003
- Chivers Audio Books
- 9"(h) x 5.5"(w) x 3.5"(d), 1.8 lbs.
- 9780792730248
, - Audio - Compact Disc
- Unabridged
- November 01, 2004
- Macmillan Audio
- 5.75"(h) x 5.25"(w) x 1.75"(d), 1.05 lbs.
- 9781593977344
, - Audio - MP3 CD
- Unabridged
- September 01, 2003
- Chivers Audio Books
- 6.25"(h) x 6.75"(w) x 1"(d), 0.5 lbs.
- 9780792730750
, - Digital
- Audio Renaissance
- 9781593971045
, - Hardcover
- 544
- September 04, 2002
- Farrar Straus & Giroux
- 9.5"(h) x 6.5"(w) x 1.67"(d), 1.95 lbs.
- 9780374199692
, - Paperback
- October 01, 2003
- Editorial Anagrama
- 8.75"(h) x 5.25"(w) x 1.5"(d), 1.7 lbs.
- 9788433970107
, - Paperback
- Reprint
- 529
- June 05, 2007
- Picador USA
- 8.5"(h) x 5.75"(w) x 1"(d), 0.9 lbs.
- 9780312427733
, - Paperback
- 38
- December 28, 2005
- Bookclub-In-A-Box
- 11.25"(h) x 9"(w) x 0.5"(d), 0.5 lbs.
- 9781897082003
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| Consumer Reviews |
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Martha Beck - Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth,...
Not Currently Available
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Jeffrey Eugenides and Benito Gomez Ibanez - Middlesex
Not Currently Available
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Product Review Summary
89% recommend this product
Consumer Reviews
Pros
Beautifully written, intelligent, honest voice, moving and funny, too.
Cons
Lots of descriptions of being sick, a lot of (understandable) unresolved anger.
Recommended it?
Yes
This is a beautiful book, both in what it says and how it says it. It is the true story of Martha Beck, who in 1987 discovered that she was pregnant with a child with Down syndrome, and the struggles and spiritual transformation she and her husband went through as they coped with this seemingly...
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Pros
Honest, Intelligent, Humorous and Brutally Honest tale of a mother of a son with...
Cons
Would love a sequel to know more about Adam
Recommended it?
Yes
I was initially drawn to the book Expecting Adam for the simple fact that I have an older sister with Down syndrome. This was a book that I thought would be a simple memoir written by a dedicated mother of a special needs child. This book is so much more than that.
Overachievers Anonymous...
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Product Review Summary
86% recommend this product
Consumer Reviews
596
Pros
So realistic for fiction, good story telling
Cons
Unbelievable character development, beginning is boring, very long
Recommended it?
Yes
I have been reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides for weeks. I'd seen it several times while browsing and carousing through Borders and Barnes & Noble, but I really hadn't paid much notice to it until it became a recent Oprah Book Club pick. Pulitzer Prize Winner Eugenides tells this story through...
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Pros
Fascinating tale. Interesting historical perspective.
Cons
Odd narration. Pre-adolescent sexual play.
Recommended it?
Yes
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...
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