Middlesex is a coming-of-age story of Calliope Stephanides (Cal). Cal is an intersex male, born with 5-alpha-reductase deficiency. This along with the fact that he is brought up as a female complicates Cal’s life.

Middlesex is a two-part novel: One part is the story of Cal’s grandparents; Desdemona and Lefty. They are orphans living in the small village up high on Mount Olympus, Greece. They are siblings but also third cousins. In this village of about only 100 people, third cousins are allowed to marry and everyone is somehow related to one another. Given the lack of people plus the tradition, Lefty and Desdemona decide to marry each other. Fearing the Greco-Turkish war, they decide to leave and go to the United States to live with their cousin. This part of the novel is the story of their journey, the struggles of their newly formed relationship, and their struggles of adjusting to a new country while keeping the secret of their unusual relationship.

The second part of the novel is Cal’s story of discovering his sexual identity and coming to terms with it. Even though he recognizes very early that something about the way his body and heart react to the situations is different than that of his female friends, he is not able to place these emotions for what they are.

How did it make me feel?

I did not find Middlesex as good as I expected. When I started the book, I was expecting the majority of the story to be focused on the protagonist’s life. Unfortunately, the readers won’t know much about Cal for more than half of the book.

The frequent switching between first-person and third-person narrative was a bit of a turn off for me. Since the whole book is Cal’s POV, the family history narrative comes off as ineffective. The excruciating details of the places and the events, in which the protagonist was not present just makes the storytelling unrealistic. I can’t help but think if this novel was structured around multiple POVs, it would have been a better experience. I found the use of humor good in some places but undesirable in others.

There are many subplots in the course of the narration whose significance to the main story got lost on me. These do not contribute anything of the essence to the story. As a reader, I felt that knowing certain parts were unnecessary for the main storyline. Instead, I would have welcomed more information about the protagonist.

I could not connect with the secondary characters. Given that this is fiction, I did not understand the need of disguising a character under a pseudo name. For example, the name of the protagonist’s love interest is Obscure Object. Also, he addresses his brother as Chapter Eleven throughout the book. Not once does the writer reveal why, nor his real name.

However, I did love how Eugenides is successful in portraying the emotions of the protagonist, in the parts where Cal’s story furthers. He captures and translates the whirlwind of struggling with one’s sexual identity beautifully but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. I felt that Cal’s story, and hers only, deserved a lot more attention than it’s given in Middlesex.

Have you read Middlesex? Let me know your thoughts!