Middlesex

Middlesex is a 2002 novel by Jeffrey Eugenides that tells a multigenerational, epic tale of a Greek family who immigrates to the US. The narrator, Calliope (or Cal) tells the story of how his grandparents, Lefty and Desdemona Stephanides, flee their homeland during a time of war and uncertainty, settling in the US. They harbor a family secret that changes the course of the narrator’s life: They’re brother and sister, and carry a genetic mutation that passes down to their son, Milton, and his wife, Tessie, who is Milton’s cousin. Tessie and Milton’s second child, Cal, is raised as a girl until adolescence, when it’s discovered that the child is male. Along the way, the family confronts forces of history, from wars and racial strife to the rising counterculture, as well as personal loss and the price of genetic inheritance. The book, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, explores the US immigrant experience, the vagaries of love, and the importance of storytelling, while questioning conventional notions of sex and gender.

All quotations in this guide are from the 2002 Picador paperback edition.

Note: This guide uses Cal’s birth name and she/her pronouns when summarizing the early parts of his life, before his accident and subsequent decision to live as Cal.