Middlesex
By Jeffrey Eugenides
Farrar, Strauss, Giroux
2002 (first edition)
Condition: Pristine; signed by author with a personalized inscription that reads “To Heather L. S. all best and thanks for reading slowly.”
Why I keep it: intellectual, personal [*]
Somewhere on my overstuffed books shelves, I have a copy of “The Virgin Suicides,” Jeffrey Eugenides‘ first novel; and while I think his debut is worth reading, I treasure his expansive, generational novel “Middlesex.” (I had no trouble putting my hands on it when I decided to write this post.)
From the title, which plays with one of the novel’s main themes (intersexuality) to the twisting, delicious narrative, I had a feeling from the first moment it arrived on my desk that this book would be an important American novel.
In the opening lines of my Oct. 25, 2002 review, I wrote “In many ways, author Jeffrey Eugenides’ new novel “Middlesex” can be described as the ultimate American story. While ostensibly telling the painful coming-of-age tale of a young hermaphrodite, Eugenides takes time to explore the promise of the American dream — that heady mix of life, liberty, the chance to make buckets of money and ultimately, the ability to reinvent oneself.”
I was high on this book, but I also felt that Farrar, Strauss, Giroux was having some trouble marketing the novel to a more general readership. Whereas “The Virgin Suicides” was an easy sell (boys meet girls, girls kill selves, boys obsess about meaning of these suicides), “Middlesex,” like the fictional lives it contained, was messy, intricate and confounding. Was it a novel about intersexuality? Or a family history? Was it a story about being the other, in all of that word’s meaning? Or about the ultimate redemption of family? (Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes.)
No matter, though, because every marketing issue the publisher faced disappeared in 2003 when the book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. During my years as a books editor for The Capital Times, I kept up on the Pulitzer Prize fiction nominees list. Sometimes I was surprised by who won and sometimes I was disappointed; but I felt a deep sense of pleasure when I learned that Eugenides had won for this brilliant novel.
Eugenides wrote “Middlesex” as the fictional memoir of Calliope (Cal) Stephanides. Cal was born (in Detroit) with a 5-alpha-reductase deficiency and was labeled a girl at birth despite being intersexed (sometimes referred to as a hermaphrodite). The novel explores Cal’s coming of age, in which he rejects the label of woman and embraces his masculinity, but the reach of that story line was too small for Eugenides, who wove in the story of Cal’s parents and grandparents. The opportunity for reinvention that immigration offers plays an important role in Cal’s future, as does the family’s Greek heritage.
In October 2004, I had the opportunity to interview Eugenides. He was charming and funny, and he spoke about the changes his life had undergone after winning the Pulitzer. Whereas before I had only respected Eugenides for his skill as a writer, after spending some time talking to him, I found myself genuinely appreciating the guy as a person. This was my favorite exchange between us:
I suppose the Pulitzer Prize changed your life. When I met you a few years ago, you were probably one of the more unassuming authors I’d ever met. You were pretty shy.
Not now, though, in my large limousine that I go around in. I’m a totally different guy.
So, you’re taking the town by storm. Are you coming into stores and saying, “Do you know who I am?”
I don’t even have to do that. Wait, what was the question?
Has your life changed a bunch?
It has changed to a certain degree. It’s hard to separate the publication of “Middlesex” and the Pulitzer Prize, though I think what the prize tends to do is give you a kind of easy label for people.
People mention it a lot. I went to my first Wrigley’s game the other day and was sitting in the bleachers. I guess I was overdressed for a Wrigley’s game in the estimation of the audience because they started saying, “Are you sure you’re not too warm?” They were basically all half-naked with no shirts on. I had a shirt on and a very light linen coat, and they started heckling me for how much I was wearing. I was just so surprised. The people I was with whom I had never met before, they looked at me and they said, “Tell them to go to hell, tell them you won the Pulitzer Prize,” or something like that.
So, people will constantly mention it, but I think they don’t know about it. It does alter how you’re perceived in the world. That’s probably the biggest difference. Suddenly you have a kind of almost brand label for people who haven’t read your book. The best benefit is it brings readers to your book. That’s what I’m happiest about, because I wrote “Middlesex” with the reader in mind. Some people were unsure about the subject matter and not really understanding what it was about, and that kind of book was aided by getting a prize like that.
Eugenides is working on a third novel, but don’t expect it any time soon. He has earned his reputation as a slow, meticulous writer. “Middlesex” took him nine years to complete, so we should be on track to see something from the author in another year or so.
And in 24 hours: “A Desert in Bohemia” by Jill Paton Walsh
Further reading:
NY Times video interview of Eugenides (May 15, 2009)
Reading guide for “Middlesex”
Powell’s Books’ author interview
Jonathan Safran Foer’s interview of Eugenides at BOMB Magazine