LITERATURE: Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides

Oh Jeff. Love you, boo.

Beautiful, very lyrical prose and a fairly gripping story about a man named Cal, and how he journeyed from being a young Greek girl (Calliope) to realizing that he had both, erm, parts, and identified more with the male form. More or less, I guess you'd have to classify this as a coming-of-age, but also as one of those family history sort of texts, a la "If I Told You Once" by Judy Budnitz (brilliant), or even something like "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn," since the vast majority of the story, though it's being narrated by Cal, focuses on events that happened before his birth.

Particularly, he traces his "condition" back to the very familial "mistakes" that caused it. (Incest, much?) which gives the reader a very thoughtful account of landscapes like Greece and Detroit at the turn of the century.

There are alternating moments of mirth, grief, and salacious scenes between adolescents just budding over with repressed sexuality, all of which makes this a great read. There are also a ton of "Forest Gump"-like moments, where the family's adventures intersect with historical figures or events, which adds to the pleasure of reading this book through slowly.

My only criticism might be that, for me, the ending didn't quite seem to match up. All too quickly, it seemed to disconnect from the rest of the plot re: Cal's family, and the very end was a little underdeveloped for me. I wanted a more about adult Cal, though I can definitely see what Eugenides accomplished by leaving the plot openended. IMHO, though, I feel like the adult Cal should have been more developed since the whole plot is sort of his explanation of his current life.

But then again, it won a Pulitzer, so what do I know?

The only other thing I will say is that, for me, at least, it was a fairly slow read. I was definitely able to put it down, (I read Twilight in a day in the middle of this one), and I'm not sure whether that's a boon or a bore. I was glad, ultimately, that I read it, but I suppose that it wasn't the best beach book out there. Although, to be fair, 4 separate people on the beach in the group that I was with were all reading it. So there.

FINAL VERDICT:

**** out of *****