Middlesex (novel)
LC Class | PS3555.U4 M53 2002 |
Middlesex is a
Primarily a coming-of-age story (
Narrator and protagonist Cal Stephanides (initially called "Callie") is an
Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times Book Review considered Middlesex one of the best books of 2002, and some scholars believed the novel should be considered for the title of Great American Novel. Generally, reviewers felt that the novel succeeded in portraying its Greek immigrant drama and were also impressed with Eugenides' depiction of his hometown of Detroit, praising him for his social commentary. Reviewers from the medical, gay, and intersex communities mostly praised Middlesex,[note 1] though some intersex commentators have been more critical.[3][4] In 2007, the book was featured in Oprah's Book Club.
Conception, research, and publication
After publishing his first novel,
Eugenides worked on Middlesex for nine years. He started writing during his short-term residence at the
Although Eugenides sought expert advice about intersex,
After discovering in his library research
Middlesex was published for the North American market in September 2002 by
Plot
Cal Stephanides (his masculine identity), also known as Calliope (feminine), recounts how
In 1922, Cal's paternal grandfather, Eleutherios "Lefty" Stephanides, lives in Bithynios, a village in
After arriving in New York, they locate and stay with their cousin Sourmelina "Lina" Zizmo, in Detroit, Michigan, a closeted lesbian and the only person who knows of the siblings' incestuous relationship. Lefty takes a job at Ford Motor Company, but is later retrenched. He unknowingly joins Lina's husband, Jimmy, in bootlegging. Desdemona gives birth to a son, Milton, and a daughter, Zoe. Lina gives birth to a daughter, Theodora or "Tessie". The relationship between Lefty and Desdemona declines after she learns that there is an increased chance of genetic disease for children born from incest. In 1924, after Milton's birth, Lefty opens a bar and gambling den called the Zebra Room.
Milton and Tessie marry in 1946. They have two children, Chapter Eleven[note 3] and Calliope ("Callie"). Prior to Callie's birth, Desdemona predicts the child to be a boy, although the parents prepare for a girl. Chapter Eleven is a biologically "normal" boy; however, Callie is intersex. Unaware of this, her family raise Callie as a girl. Elements of family life are portrayed against struggles in the rise and fall of industrial Detroit. The family gets caught up in the 1967 Detroit riot resulting from racial tensions, after President Johnson authorizes the use of federal troops, and the family restaurant is raided during this period. Fleeing school integration, the family moves to a house on Middlesex Boulevard, Grosse Pointe.
When she is 14 years old, Callie falls in love with her female best friend, whom Callie refers to as the "Obscure Object".
Cal is arrested by police during a raid on his workplace. He is released into Chapter Eleven's custody and learns of their father's recent death. The siblings return to their family home on Middlesex. Desdemona privately confesses to Cal that her husband is also her brother, recognizing Cal's condition and associating it with stories from her old village about children born of incest. As Milton's funeral takes place at the church, Cal stands in the doorway of his family home, assuming the male-only role in Greek traditions to keep his father's spirit from re-entering the home.[25]
Years later, Cal becomes a diplomat stationed in Berlin. He meets Julie Kikuchi, a
Autobiographical elements
Reporters and critics noted that many characters and events in Middlesex parallel those in Eugenides' life. The author denied writing the novel as an
Because the story is so far from my own experience, I had to use a lot of details from my own life to ground it in reality, to make it believable for me and then hopefully for the reader, as well. So I would use my own physical appearance. I would use details from my grandparents' life, the streets they lived on, the kinds of places they lived. And all this made it real for me because it was a tall order to write such a story.[27]
Eugenides blended fact and fiction in his book.[28] Like Cal, the author was born in 1960; unlike his creation, he is not intersex or transgender.[29] His family moved to a house on Middlesex Road in Grosse Pointe[12] after the Detroit riot in 1967.[26][30] Eugenides studied at University Liggett School, a private institution that served as a model for Callie's Baker and Inglis School for Girls.[31] He tapped into his own "locker room trauma", an adolescent experience of being naked among many other nude bodies, and used it to develop Callie's self-discovery of her body during puberty.[28] He based the name of the character the "Obscure Object" on a Brown University classmate whom he found alluring and to whom he gave that nickname.[12][note 5] Eugenides married a Japanese-American artist, Karen Yamauchi,[note 6] and moved to Berlin.[11][26][29]
Eugenides is of Greek heritage, albeit only through his father's side. Although his paternal grandparents were not siblings like the Stephanides, they were silk farmers like their fictional counterparts.[28] Also like Cal, Eugenides learned some Greek customs to help himself understand his grandparents better.[6] The Zebra Room and the bartender profession are other items shared by their grandfathers;[33] Eugenides said the inclusion of the bar was a deliberate "secret code of paying homage to my grandparents and my parents."[6] Several aspects of Chapter Eleven were based on Eugenides' elder brother, who withdrew from society during a "hippie phase" in his life.[29] While revising and editing the book, the author removed information that could be offensive to his relatives. Not all such material was excised, Eugenides said: "There may still be things in there that will sting."[34]
Style
[T]he writing itself is also about mixing things up, grafting flights of descriptive fancy with hunks of conversational dialogue, pausing briefly to sketch passing characters or explain a bit of a bygone world.
Several reviewers considered Middlesex to be overly verbose. The Economist described the novel as "ponderous" and said that the main story (that of Cal) does not "get off the ground until halfway through" the book.[36] Time's Richard Lacayo concurred; he considered the hundreds of pages about Cal's grandparents and several historical events to be trite, making Middlesex's focus "footloose" in some spots.[37] Several passages in the novel exhibit Eugenides' obsession with "verbose voluptuousness". An example noted by Thea Hillman in her review is an incident in which Cal says, "I sat in my seat, in a state of voluptuous agitation, of agitated voluptuousness, until my stop. Then I staggered out."[38][39] A contrary opinion is given by Daniel Soar in his article for the London Review of Books. According to Soar, Eugenides did "both background and foreground in all the necessary detail", seamlessly shifting from past to present. Despite the implausible tone of the novel's events, the author successfully makes them "elaborately justified and motivated".[40] The quality of Middlesex's writing was uneven in the opinions of Hillman and another reviewer, Sebastian Smee.[38][41] The latter pointed out that Eugenides occasionally moves from the heartfelt ("I remember the first time we took off our clothes in front of each other. It was like unwinding bandages")[42] to the "trashily journalistic" ("You've heard of installation artists? Well, the Object [a heavy smoker] was an exhalation artist")[43] on several occasions.[41]
Humor and
Narrative modes
Middlesex is written in the form of a
Although the protagonist switches gender throughout the book, Cal's manners of speech and thought are identical to Callie's. Believing that males and females have no inherent disparities in their writing styles, Eugenides treated Cal and Callie as the same person, in terms of narrative voice. He also fixed the narrative voice in terms of age by setting up Cal to relate the entire story at one time. Eugenides gave his protagonist a mostly male outlook, justifying his treatment with the reasoning that Cal or Callie was a man in terms of appearance, sexual desires, and the brain.[34] He asked his wife and other women to review his approaches on Cal's feminine views. The "emotional stuff" was accurate but Eugenides had to refine certain details, such as those about toenail polish.[34]
At the beginning of the book when Cal discusses his family's history and actions prior to his birth, he speaks in an
Mullan remarked that Eugenides' narrator has a proclivity to reveal events that will happen in the future. Cal is a narrator who is absorbed in how his fate has been shaped. Cal eschews a chronological telling of the story, where he shares the characters' nescience. He chooses instead to relate the story beginning with his future knowledge. Cal's genes reflect an anticipation of the future: the disclosure of his actual sex identity. Cal mimics this "genetic inevitability" by enjoining the readers to know the future prior to its occurring. Mullan observed that "[f]or the reader, apprehension predominates over surprise" as a result of this narrative style.[65]
Genres
The
According to
The novel is characterized as a "dramatic"[70] Bildungsroman with a "big twist" because the coming-of-age story is revealed to be the incorrect one: after being nurtured as a woman, Cal must instead learn to become a man. The book has "two distinct and occasionally warring halves".[44] Whereas the first part is about hermaphrodites, the second is about Greeks. The latter half, "full of incest, violence, and terrible family secrets", was considered by Daniel Mendelsohn, an author and critic, to be more effective because Middlesex is largely about how Callie inherited the momentous gene that "ends up defining her indefinable life".[44]
Writing for The New Republic, James Wood classified Middlesex as a story written in the vein of hysterical realism. He said the novel is influenced by its own recounting of "excitements, patternings, and implausibilities that lie on the soft side of magical realism". Such moments in the book include how two cousins conceive "on the same night and at the same moment" and how years later, those children marry each other. Woods also pointed out the seeming coincidences that involved locales. Smyrna is the burning city from which she flees to start a new life; New Smyrna Beach is where she spends her retirement.[71] Effectively serving as a double entendre,[72] the title of the book refers to the name of the street where Cal stays at and describes his situation: a hermaphrodite brought up as a girl but who decides to become a boy. Cal's condition is also reflected in his choice of locale to narrate the novel: Berlin is a city formerly of "two halves or sexes" (East and West).[71]
Themes
Rebirth
Following the Great Fire of Smyrna, Lefty and Desdemona must start life anew. When she is 14 years old, Callie experiences a second birth to become Cal. To become a male, Callie peregrinates across the United States and becomes a midwife of her new life by teaching herself to forget what she has learned as a female.[73] Likewise, Cal's grandparents undergo a transformation, becoming husband and wife instead of brother and sister.[74] Middlesex delves into the concept of identity, including how it is formed and how it is administered.[50] The immigrant predicament is a metaphor and synecdoche for Calliope's hermaphroditic condition; Callie's paternal grandparents become Americanized through the amalgamation of the elements of heredity, cultural metamorphoses, and probability.[53] Callie's maternal grandfather, Jimmy Zizmo, undergoes a rebirth when he transforms from a bootlegger into Fard Muhammad, a Muslim minister.[46]
American Dream
Middlesex traces the trials and adversity faced by the Stephanides family as they pursue the American Dream.[75] Beginning with Lefty and Desdemona, Cal's grandparents, fleeing from their homeland to Ellis Island and the United States, the novel later depicts the family living in a suburban vista at Grosse Pointe, Michigan.[76] After they immigrate to the United States, Lefty and Desdemona find themselves in a blissful America on the brink of economic collapse. They dream about a perfect America where effort and morals will lead to good fortune. However, they must seek to attain this perfection during a period characterized by Prohibition and xenophobic anti-immigration legislation.[75] Middlesex depicts the tribulations of attaining an identity, especially while dealing with the revelation that the American Dream is a delusion that has already disappeared.[77]
Race relations
Middlesex portrays the race relations between people of different cultures; Mendelsohn considered the handling of this theme "preachy and nervous".[44] In the United States, a strongly nativist country in the 1920s, Greek immigrants must suffer numerous humiliations at the hands of prejudiced whites. When Cal's grandfather Lefty, a recent Greek immigrant, is working at one of Henry Ford's automobile factories, Ford investigators attempt to Americanize him.[54] They visit his house to ascertain that he has been living as a typical American. For example, during his first English-language lesson, Lefty is taught that "[e]mployees should use plenty of soap and water in the home".[78][79] The narrow-minded nativists believe that immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe are unaware of the value of soap and water.[78]
According to scholar Robert Zecker, the novel depicts
The novel skims over the brutal attacks, lasting a week, on blacks in Detroit during World War II. Years later, in 1967, Lefty is incorrectly told that that year's Detroit riots were started by a black man raping a white woman; this falsehood is never rectified. However, despite this misinformation, Lefty denies service to a number of white customers who partook in the riots.[54] One dismissed customer even yells at him, "[w]hy don't you go back to your own country?", returning the spotlight of racial prejudice on him.[78][80]
The relationship between the Greek Americans and the African Americans is fraught with prejudice. For example, during the Depression, Desdemona is shocked and humiliated that she will have to work in the Black Bottom, a predominantly black neighborhood. When African Americans are beaten or taken advantage of by whites, the characters in Middlesex "suddenly are nearsighted" to the racial prejudice. Despite being in the United States for only 10 years and having experienced racism herself, she can, Zecker noted, "recite at heart the slights at blacks as lazy, dirty, sexually promiscuous, and incapable of self-help."[54] She and other whites, including immigrant whites, feel rage because they are "convinced they were somehow forced out of Detroit following 1967."[81] While walking through the neighborhood, a group of African-American men loafing in front of a barbershop wolf-whistle to Desdemona and make lascivious comments, thus confirming the racial stereotype.[78]
Zecker remarked that in an ironic twist, immediately after the riots, Desdemona's family is shamed by a white realtor who "doubts their fitness (whiteness)" to live in the rich suburb of Grosse Pointe. In the 1970s, African Americans, instead of Mediterraneans, were discriminated against through redlining. Zecker opined that by framing African Americans as the "eternal destroyers" and white ethnics as "yet again the oppressed innocents", Eugenides "captures perfectly the dominant narrative of urban decline in the early twenty-first century American Zeitgeist."[82] Insurance settlement from the damage caused at the riots allows the Stephanides to purchase a home away from the African Americans. The family joins the white flight from the city to avoid the racial desegregation in the public schools, sending Cal to a private school.[83]
Ethnic identity
When Lefty and Desdemona are forced to immigrate to the United States, they have different mindsets. Whereas Lefty embraces his new country's customs, Desdemona is adamant that she will follow her old country's ways. For example, she is angered that her "immigrant hair" is chopped off because she does not want to "look like an Amerikanidha" and decides to regrow her hair immediately. Lefty attempts to assimilate into American culture by zealously learning English. Lina, the cousin of Lefty and Desdemona, is the paragon of immigrant integration. Cal noted: "In the five years since leaving Turkey, Sourmelina had managed to erase just about everything identifiably Greek about her."[84]
Cal's father, Milton, and his friends and family cherish their Sunday gatherings. They debate and tell stories to each other, attempting to regain their ethnic roots. A "contrarian", Milton enjoys debating Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger and lamenting the steep cost of church candles. Eugenides repeatedly returns to the gathering prior to Cal's conception, to "manufacture a psychology that drives his narration". As the immigrants attempt to maintain their identity, the stage is set for Cal's writing even before he is conceived.[40]
Middlesex delves into the schism and reconciling of two opposites by contrasting the experiences and opinions of males and females; Greek Americans and
The Greek immigrant family experiences a three-phase acculturation that occurs to immigrant families, according to scholar Merton Lee's research about sociologist George A. Kourvetaris' work. Each generation identifies with different nationalities and cultures. In the first generation, the family members classify themselves as having a Greek nationality. In the second generation, the children classify themselves with an American nationality and Greek Orthodox religion. In the third generation, the grandchildren, who comprise the most acculturated group, characterize themselves with "Greek-immigration status as a class".[89]
The Stephanides lineage is from Bithynios, a village in Asia Minor where the Greek
Daniel Soar opined that
Greek mythical allusions
Middlesex has several allusions to Greek classical myths;
Eugenides and several critics compared Cal's condition to mythical creatures described by the ancient Greeks. The author alluded his protagonist's nature and heritage to the Minotaur, the half-man and half-bull creature.[59] Cal's father is conceived after his grandparents' attendance of a theatric play entitled The Minotaur.[96] The puzzle of Cal's genetic identity is akin to the creature's labyrinth, and the thread that leads out of the maze is held here by his paternal grandmother, a former silk farmer.[97] Frances Bartkowski, a scholar of English, named Callie in her puberty as a chimera. The mythical monster is an analogy for a complex personality, a mixture of body parts from various animals that each represents a human aspect or characteristic. Similarly, adolescent Callie is an amalgamation of her genes, neither male nor female, neither adult nor child, and yet all of them at the same time.[98]
In her book column for the Detroit Free Press, Marta Salij said that Cal's identity crisis resembles Odysseus's fate. Whereas the mythical hero is troubled by Poseidon and succored by Athena, the intersex protagonist is affected by his chromosomes in a similar manner.[99] John Sykes, professor of English and religion education, noted another Greek-hero reference. In a manner similar to Oedipus's fulfillment of Pythia's prophecy to slay his father and marry his mother, Callie validates the prediction her grandmother made before her birth by adopting a male identity.[100] Eugenides also used the allusions to Greek mythology and modern pop music to show the passing of familial traits and idiosyncrasies from one generation to the next.[76]
Nature versus nurture
The novel examines the
Callie inherited the mutation for a gene that causes 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, which impedes the conversion of
Gender identity and intersex status
Raised as a girl, Cal views himself as a girl who likes other girls.[107] His ability to have a "feminine gender schema" despite his having male genes, substantiates the constructionist position that gender identity is fully dependent on outer influences. However, when Callie discovers that he could have been raised as a boy, he renounces his female gender, recognizing his chosen gender identity as a male. Disowning the female gender before he learned about masculine traits bolsters the argument for the "essentialist ideology of identity".[108] Cal's embrace of his inherent male identity and renunciation of his childhood female gender identity is articulated when he reflects, "I never felt out of place being a girl, I still don't feel entirely at home among men."[108][109]
Cal exhibits many masculine characteristics when he is a child.[110] He writes, "I began to exude some kind of masculinity, in the way I tossed up and caught my eraser, for instance."[111] In another incident, Cal discusses how his penchants were masculine. While his female classmates are turned off by the blood in the Iliad, Cal is "thrilled to [read about] the stabbings and beheadings, the gouging out of eyes, the juicy eviscerations."[110][112] Cal ponders his gender identity and how males and females associate with each other, reflecting, "Did I see through the male tricks because I was destined to scheme that way myself? Or do girls see through the tricks, too, and just pretend not to notice?"[110][113]
Cal also exhibits feminine characteristics, which allows Dr. Luce to classify her as possessing a female gender identity. In a home video taken when Cal was a child, his mother gives him a doll and he nurses it with a milk bottle. Luce carefully observes Callie's actions and diagnoses them as feminine, which causes him to determine that Callie has a feminine gender identity. Luce then concludes that gender identity is nurtured and etched into children at their young ages.[110]
Determining sex is paradoxical because the characters believe that the outward view of
According to intersex activist and academic Morgan Holmes, Eugenides posits that a person's sexual attraction determines his or her gender.[114] Cal's wish to become male because he desires females demonstrates a link between gender identity and sexuality.[115] While Callie is not permitted to love the Obscure Object openly, Cal can freely love Julie.[116] Holmes believed that the depiction of Callie "denies the legitimate place of lesbian desire and rewrites it as male heterosexuality."[4] Book reviewer Georgia Warnke has a similar view. She wrote that by making these choices in the novel, Eugenides agrees with the belief that being attracted to females is "masculine" and thus it is "more natural" for a male to be attracted to a female than a female be attracted to a female.[115] Daniel Mendelsohn of The New York Review of Books argued that Callie does not have to be a male in order to be drawn towards females; she could be gay. As an adult, Cal brags, "Breasts have the same effect on me as on anyone with my testosterone level."[44][117] Mendelsohn noted that this assertion will astonish "Eugenides's (presumably testosterone-rich) gay male readership".[44] Scholar Rachel Carroll agreed, writing that teenage Callie's erotic interest in girls is "retroactively explained and legitimized, by the discovery of his 'true biological nature'." Cal's gender identity postdates rather than predates his sexual interests.[118] Carroll posited that Cal's inability to form heterosexual relationships as an adult is founded not upon his being intersex, but on his rejection of the sexual ambiguities that form his sexual interests as a youth.[119]
When Callie is in New York, she goes to the New York Public Library and searches for the meaning of the word "hermaphrodite"; she is shocked when the dictionary entry concludes with "See synonyms at MONSTER".[120][121] Callie is not a Frankenstein; she is more like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. Bartkowski stated that Eugenides' message is "we must let our monsters out—they demand and deserve recognition—they are us: our same, self, others."[122] Morgan Holmes, formerly of ISNA, describes how the book constructs an intersex character whose life reproduces "social fascination with the monstrous and the deviant."[123]
Seven Graham wrote in Ariel, a journal published by the University of Calgary, that Eugenides' "persisen[t]" use of the word "hermaphrodite", instead of "intersex", alludes to Hermaphroditus. Hermaphroditus, a young man, is chased by the nymph Salmacis. She begs the Gods to bind her and Hermaphroditus together, and the Gods literally fulfill her wish. Hermaphroditus' name is a compound of his parents' names—Hermes and Aphrodite. He instantaneously turns into someone of both sexes. Devastated because he is no longer fully male, he "curses" the location where he first met Salmacis.[124] Graham stated that the use of "hermaphrodite" carries negative connotations:
Based on this origin story, the hermaphrodite's lot is miserable, associated with disempowerment, the theft of identity and an unhappy dual existence. In addition, the term "hermaphrodite" may be deemed problematic because it alludes to an impossible state of being: no-one can be equally male and female and the preferred term "intersex" indicates a blended rather than divided state. While the modern term might indicate the possibility of redefining sexual ambivalence, Cal is associated in the novel with the mythic term and all it connotes. His connection to this tragic figure is confirmed by his performance as "Hermaphroditus" in a sex show at the age of fourteen, just as he is beginning his female to male transition.[124]
Writing that he belongs to the Intersex Society of America, Cal notes that he has not participated in any of the group's rallies because he is not a "political person".
Incest and intersex
Incest and intersex is another theme in Middlesex. Eugenides examines the passionate feelings that siblings living in seclusion experience for each other.[44] Milton and Tessie, second cousins, are conceived during the same night, hinting to the incest of Desdemona and Lefty.[73] Desdemona and Lefty's incestuous relationship is a transgression of a powerful taboo, indicating that someone will suffer for their wrongs; in a way, Cal's intersex condition symbolizes this Greek hubris.[73] In another incestuous relationship, Milton makes love to Tessie using a clarinet which he lovingly rubs against her; their incestuous relationship enables them to contribute mutated genes to their child Cal.[126] Cal's mother interferes with fate by attempting to make her second child a daughter. Cal believes this interference was a factor in his being intersex.[76] Conversely, Cal's relationship with his brother, Chapter Eleven, is indicative of the possible dissimilarities that are products of the biosocial.[98]
Thea Hillman, an intersex activist and board member for the (now defunct) Intersex Society of North America (ISNA), wrote in the Lambda Book Report, 2002, that the combination of incest and intersex is "inaccurate and misleading". Noting that incest is a loathed social taboo that has "shameful, pathological and criminal repercussions", she criticized Eugenides for underscoring that Cal's intersex condition is due to incest. Hillman stated that this adds to the fallacious belief that intersex people are "shameful and sick" and a danger to society's wellbeing.[127]
Seven Graham agrees with Hillman and Holmes, writing that Cal is paralleled with the tragic Greek mythological characters Hermaphroditus, Tiresias, and the Minotaur.[128] They opined that other "deviant" characters in the novel such as Lefty and Desdemona are spared the "tragic or monstrous" allusions even though there are numerous examples of incest in Greek mythology. They listed the marriage of Oedipus and his mother Jocasta, as well as the son Adonis produced by the incest between Theias and his daughter Smyrna as examples.[129] Therefore, Graham stated that comparing Cal, an intersex person, to people who were "mythological monsters" is "complicit with [the] exploitation" of intersex people.[3]
Reception
Honors and adaptation
In 2003, Middlesex was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.[60] The Pulitzer Board[note 8] wrote in their report that Middlesex is a "vastly realized, multi-generational novel as highspirited as it is intelligent . . . Like the masks of Greek drama, Middlesex is equal parts comedy and tragedy, but its real triumph is its emotional abundance, delivered with consummate authority and grace."[131] Eugenides was attending the Prague Writers' Festival when Middlesex won the Pulitzer Prize.[132] When a young Associated Press photographer notified him about winning the award, Eugenides was dubious, noting that "[i]t seemed very unlikely that he would be the messenger of such news."[133] At the time, Eugenides was with the Canadian author Yann Martel who confirmed the photographer's words after checking on the hotel's computer. A waiter brought champagne to Eugenides, and Greek women started kissing him.[133] When journalists called Eugenides, he declined to take their calls, saying in an interview later that he wanted to "celebrate the moment instead of leaping immediately into the media maelstrom."[132]
The novel received the
The
Critical reception
Some critics were dissatisfied with the scope of the novel.[44][141] Daniel Mendelsohn of The New York Times Book Review wrote that thematically, there was no reason that a Greek should be an intersex or vice versa and that Eugenides had two disconnected stories to tell.[44] Clay Risen of Flak Magazine believed that the immigrant experience was the "heart of the novel", lamenting that it minimized the story of Callie/Cal who is such a "fascinating character that the reader feels short-changed by his failure to take her/him further."[53] Risen wished to read more about the events between Cal's adolescence and adulthood, such as Cal's experience in college as an intersex person as well as the relationships he had.[53] The Washington Post's Lisa Zeidner opined that Eugenides purposefully devised this asymmetry.[142] Stewart O'Nan of The Atlantic also felt that the brief description of Callie's childhood was lacking; the book "gloss[es] over" how her mother did not recognize that Callie had male genitalia when she was washing or clothing Callie.[69] Further, O'Nan characterized Cal's relationship with the Japanese-American photographer Julie as "underdeveloped", causing the reader not to experience its entirety.[69] Michelle Vellucci of People had the same view about the novel's end, writing that the conclusion felt "rushed".[143]
Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly called the novel a "big-hearted, restless story" and rated it an A minus.[35] In Literary Review, Sam Leith called it "a marvellous, quirky and moving entertainment".[144] Lisa Zeidner of The Washington Post opined that Middlesex "provides not only incest à la Ada and a Lolita-style road trip, but enough dense detail to keep fans of close reading manically busy."[142] Tami Hoag of People concurred, writing that "this feast of a novel is thrilling in the scope of its imagination and surprising in its tenderness".[145] Andrew O'Hehir of Salon agreed, praising Middlesex as an "epic and wondrous" novel filled with numerous characters and historical occurrences.[59] Mendelsohn praised Middlesex for its "dense narrative, interwoven with sardonic, fashionably postmodern commentary."[44] However, he criticized the novel as a disjointed hybrid. He wrote Eugenides was successful with the story of the Greek immigrants, which he described as "authenti[c]", but mishandled the hermaphrodite material, which Mendelsohn characterized as "unpersuasiv[e]".[44] The Economist review stated that a more concise, concentrated depiction of hermaphroditism would have made the book more "fun to read".[36] Jeff Zaleski of Publishers Weekly praised Eugenides' portrayal of the girl, Callie, and the man Cal. Zaleski wrote that "[i]t's difficult to imagine any serious male writer of earlier eras so effortlessly transcending the stereotypes of gender."[146] Paul Quinn of Contemporary Literary Criticism commended the novel, writing: "That Eugenides manages to move us without sinking into sentiment shows how successfully he has avoided the tentacles of irony which grip so many writers of his generation."[147] Christina McCarroll of The Christian Science Monitor wrote that "Eugenides wrangles with a destiny that mutates and recombines like restless chromosomes, in a novel of extraordinary flexibility, scope, and emotional depth."[135]
Marta Salij of the Detroit Free Press was impressed with the book's depiction of Detroit, writing "[a]t last Detroit has its novel. What Dublin got from James Joyce—a sprawling, ambitious, loving, exasperated and playful chronicle of all its good and bad parts—Detroit has from native son Eugenides in these 500 pages."[99] David Kipen of the San Francisco Chronicle agreed, opining "[a]mong so many other things, this praiseworthy, prize-worthy yarn succeeds as a heartbroken mash note to the Detroit of Eugenides' birth, a city whose neighborhoods he sometimes appears to love—as he loves his characters—less for their virtues than for their defects. Any book that can make a reader actively want to visit Detroit must have one honey of a tiger in its tank."[148]
Several critics have nominated the book for the title of "Great American Novel".[53][149][150] Tim Morris, a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, wrote that the novel was "the latest in a long line of contenders for the status of Great American Novel",[150] and compared Cal to Huckleberry Finn, the narrator of Invisible Man, and J. Sutter in John Henry Days.[150] Alexander Linklater of the Evening Standard commented that American publishers chose Middlesex as the next Great American Novel to generate progress for American fiction and that Eugenides is considered the "next stepping stone along from Jonathan Franzen".[97] Dan Cryer of Newsday wrote that with the publication of Middlesex, "[f]inally, Detroit has its very own great American novel".[151]
David Gates of Newsweek contrasted Eugenides' debut novel The Virgin Suicides with Middlesex, writing that the first novel was "ingenious", "entertaining", and "oddly moving", but that Middlesex is "ingenious", "entertaining", and "ultimately not-so-moving".[152] Despite this criticism, Gates considered Middlesex to be the novel where Eugenides "finally plays his metafictional ace".[152] Commenting that Middlesex is "more discursive and funnier" than The Virgin Suicides, Laura Miller of Salon wrote that the two novels deal with disunity.[25] Max Watman of The New Criterion concurred, noting that Middlesex is "funny, big, embracing, and wonderful", unlike Eugenides' first novel.[153] Mark Lawson of The Guardian praised Middlesex for having the same unique qualities as The Virgin Suicides, commenting that Middlesex had "an ability to describe the horrible in a comic voice, an unusual form of narration and an eye for bizarre detail."[45] Lawson noted that whereas Middlesex deals with the "links" among gender, life, and genes, The Virgin Suicides deals with the "connections" between gender and death.[45]
According to Olivia Banner of
Eugenides' third novel, The Marriage Plot, was published in 2011. Reviewer William Deresiewicz contrasted The Marriage Plot and Middlesex, writing that the former was "far more intimate in tone and scale". The Marriage Plot follows two years in the lives of three characters, fourth-year Brown University students in 1982, whereas Middlesex follows the lives of three generations of characters. Deresiewicz preferred the 2011 novel, writing that "[t]he books are far apart in quality". He criticized Middlesex for its "[c]lanking prose, clunky exposition, transparent devices, telegraphed moves", "a hash of narrative contrivances with very little on its mind." On a more positive note, Deresiewicz lauded Eugenides' colorful depiction of "young love" across his three novels. In The Virgin Suicides, Eugenides resplendently portrayed the intense fear during virginal sex, as well as Gabriel García Márquez, the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate; in Middlesex, the single event in which the novel "comes to life" is Eugenides' depiction of Callie's liaison with her adolescent lover; and in The Marriage Plot, the novel was exceptional in its "sweet banter of courtship" and the "doormat nice-boy role" the character Mitchell assumes in his interplay with his darling, Madeleine.[158]
Sales
From the book's publication until the early months of 2003, its sales were unsatisfactory, according to Bill Goldstein of The New York Times.[note 9][6] In the week following April 7, 2003, the day Middlesex won the Pulitzer Prize, the book sold 2,700 copies. The book later made the best-selling fiction list and kept its position for five weeks.[160] In June 2007, the novel ranked seventh on USA Today's Best-Selling Books list.[161] In the same month, after Eugenides appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss the novel, Middlesex placed second on The New York Times best-selling paperback fiction list.[162] The Pulitzer award nearly propelled Middlesex to The New York Times Best Seller list, which in 2003 published only the top 15 bestsellers; in the week after Middlesex was announced the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the novel placed 17th on the "expanded list".[163] In 2007, 1.3 million copies of the book had been sold.[133] The same year, the book placed ninth on the Library Journal bestsellers list, which ranks "the books most borrowed in U.S. libraries".[164] Over three million copies of Middlesex had been sold by May 2011[165] and over four million by 2013.[166]
See also
References
- Notes
- Lambda Literary Award, which is given to works that celebrate or explore LGBT themes.[2]
- Persian rug. Eugenides enjoyed the place, writing, "It was like having a country house suddenly, like going from being a starving artist to a landowner."[10]
- ^ Because his brother drives the family business into bankruptcy, Cal refers to him by a specific portion of the US bankruptcy law.[23]
- ^ A reference to the 1977 film That Obscure Object of Desire directed by Luis Buñuel[24]
- art historian and lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.[32]
- ^ The couple met at MacDowell Colony during Eugenides' stay there and married in 1995.[10]
- mulberry tree, conceived silk. The princess ordered her maid to walk after grabbing hold of the thread's loose end. The thread disentangles, relinking the reader to Mount Olympus.[40]
- ^ That the book was initially financially unsuccessful was disputed by Jana Funke in the 2009 Encyclopedia of Contemporary Writers and Their Work. She wrote that Middlesex was "both a literary and a commercial success upon initial publication".[159]
- Footnotes
- ^ a b Banner 2010, p. 860.
- ^ a b c d Banner 2010, p. 862.
- ^ a b Graham 2009, p. 3.
- ^ a b Holmes 2008, pp. 93–94.
- ^ a b Schwyzer, Elizabeth (January 8, 2010). "Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex". Santa Barbara Independent. Archived from the original on July 6, 2008. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
- ^ a b c d e f g Goldstein, Bill (January 1, 2003). "A Novelist Goes Far Afield but Winds Up Back Home Again". The New York Times. New York. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved February 1, 2010.
- ^ a b Eugenides, Jeffrey (2003). "3am Interview An Interview with Jeffrey Eugenides, Author of the Middlesex and The Virgin Suicides". 3:AM Magazine (Interview). Interviewed by Moorhem, Bram van. Archived from the original on December 3, 2010. Retrieved February 6, 2010.
- ^ Wilson 1996, p. 52.
- ^ Mirzoeff 1999, p. 168.
- ^ a b Brady, Lois Smith (December 17, 1995). "Vows: Karen Yamauchi, Jeffrey Eugenides". The New York Times. New York. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved October 2, 2011.
- ^ a b c Brown, Mick (January 5, 2008). "Jeffrey Eugenides: Enduring love". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on December 1, 2010. Retrieved April 2, 2010.
- ^ a b c d e Bedell, Geraldine (October 6, 2002). "He's not like other girls". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on November 25, 2009. Retrieved February 1, 2010.
- ^ Collins, Rachel (July 15, 2002). "Through gendered eyes: Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex". Library Journal. 121 (1). New York: Media Source. Archived from the original on July 16, 2012. Retrieved October 22, 2010.
- ^ Cowan, Caitlin (November 3, 2006). "Omens and prose: Prolific author speaks to packed crowd at Rackham". The Michigan Daily. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. Archived from the original on November 9, 2016. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
- ^ Eugenides, Jeffrey (November 25, 2011). "Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides—Week three: writing Middlesex". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on January 1, 2012. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, p. iv.
- Macmillan Publishers). Archived from the originalon November 13, 2012.
- ^ Gray, Kim (August 13, 2008). "Reading what your book says about you". Nanaimo Daily News. Nanaimo. Archived from the original on March 24, 2016. Retrieved October 6, 2011.
- ^ "Jeffrey Eugenides". London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Archived from the original on June 22, 2011. Retrieved April 6, 2010.
- ^ d'Aprile-Smith, Marguerite (September 18, 2007). "Pulitzer Prize-Winning Writer Jeffrey Eugenides Joins Princeton Faculty". Princeton: Lewis Center for the Arts (Princeton University). Archived from the original on July 31, 2010. Retrieved October 8, 2011.
- ^ Lothman, Herbert R. (December 9, 2002). "Barcelona: The Translation Market in Spain's Trade Capital". Publishers Weekly. 249 (9). New York. Archived from the original on October 6, 2011. Retrieved October 6, 2011.
- Anagrama. Archived from the originalon September 30, 2011. Retrieved October 5, 2011.
- ^ "Q&A with Jeffrey Eugenides: What does Chapter Eleven mean?". Oprah's Book Club. January 1, 2006. Archived from the original on August 2, 2010. Retrieved February 1, 2010.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, p. 331.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Miller, Laura (September 15, 2002). "'Middlesex': My Big Fat Greek Gender Identity Crisis". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved March 2, 2010.
- ^ a b c Keenan, Catherine (October 18, 2002). "The Herculine effort that grew". The Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney. Archived from the original on June 5, 2011. Retrieved April 6, 2010.
- National Public Radio. Archived from the originalon July 8, 2019. Retrieved August 26, 2011.
- ^ a b c Miller, Laura (October 8, 2002). "Sex, fate, and Zeus and Hera's kinkiest argument". Salon. San Francisco. Archived from the original on September 29, 2010. Retrieved April 5, 2010.
- ^ a b c Houpt, Simon (August 11, 2007). "Middlesex came to him in a dream". The Globe and Mail. Toronto. Archived from the original on December 23, 2009. Retrieved April 6, 2010.
- ^ Bonanos 2005, p. 65.
- ^ Cryer, Dan (October 22, 2002). "Breaking Through the Second-Novel Curse". Newsday. Melville, New York. Retrieved March 22, 2010.
- ^ "What you missed at last night's Jeffrey Eugenides reading". The A.V. Club. October 25, 2011. Archived from the original on June 3, 2012. Retrieved October 25, 2011.
- ^ Walker, Susan (November 16, 2002). "Jeffrey Eugenides mixes history, science and sex in a novel way". Toronto Star. Toronto. Archived from the original on September 11, 2011. Retrieved April 5, 2010.
- ^ JSTOR 40426739. Archived from the originalon March 8, 2010. Retrieved February 23, 2010.
- ^ a b Schwarzbaum, Lisa (September 13, 2002). "Review: Middlesex". Entertainment Weekly. New York. Archived from the original on April 25, 2009. Retrieved February 26, 2010.
- ^ a b "Bits and pieces; New American fiction". The Economist. London. October 5, 2002. Retrieved September 2, 2011.
- ^ Lacayo, Richard (September 23, 2002). "Middlesex". Time. New York. Archived from the original on November 6, 2012. Retrieved August 26, 2010.
- ^ a b Hillman 2002, p. 38.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, p. 41.
- ^ a b c d e Soar, Daniel (October 3, 2002). "Small Crocus, Big Kick". London Review of Books. 24 (19). London: 19–20. Archived from the original on November 2, 2011. (subscription required)
- ^ a b Smee, Sebastian (October 5, 2002). "Putting it all in". The Spectator. London: Press Holdings: 43. Retrieved August 27, 2010.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, p. 319.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, p. 346.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Mendelsohn, Daniel (November 7, 2002). "Mighty Hermaphrodite". The New York Times Book Review. New York. Archived from the original on June 12, 2009. Retrieved February 10, 2010.
- ^ a b c d Lawson, Mark (October 5, 2002). "Gender blender". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on December 4, 2009. Retrieved February 12, 2010.
- ^ a b Hanna, Julia (October 10, 2002). "Gender studies: Jeffrey Eugenides's middle sex". The Phoenix. Phoenix. Archived from the original on August 3, 2010. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, pp. 221–222.
- ^ Weiler, Derek (September 22, 2002). "Guilt and other stuff; Jeffrey Eugenides' second novel is a big, fat family epic – a flawed but entertaining departure from his taut debut". Toronto Star. Toronto. Archived from the original on September 11, 2011. Retrieved May 21, 2010.
- ^ Book. London: Barnes & Noble: 70.
- ^ a b Turrentine, Jeff (September 1, 2002). "She's come undone". Orlando Sentinel. Orlando. Archived from the original on June 4, 2011. Retrieved February 28, 2010.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, p. 252.
- ^ a b Gessen, Keith (October 14, 2002). "Sense and Sexibility". The Nation. New York. Archived from the original on February 3, 2013. Retrieved April 28, 2010.
- ^ a b c d e f Risen, Clay (October 21, 2002). "Review of Middlesex". Flak Magazine. Archived from the original on November 25, 2009. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
- ^ a b c d e Zecker 2008, p. 177.
- ^ Shostak 2008, p. 408.
- ^ Taberner 2007, p. 173.
- ^ Chu 2009, p. 280.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, pp. 402–404.
- ^ a b c d e f O'Hehir, Andrew (September 5, 2002). "'Middlesex' by Jeffrey Eugenides". Salon. San Francisco. Archived from the original on November 20, 2010. Retrieved February 4, 2010.
- ^ a b Gilpin, Sam (September 28, 2003). "Paperback pick of the week: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides". The Times. London. Archived from the original on June 15, 2011. Retrieved February 15, 2010.
- ^ Mullan, John (November 11, 2011). "Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides—Week one: omniscience". The Guardian. Archived from the original on June 3, 2013. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f g Collado-Rodriguez, Francisco (January 1, 2006). "Of self and country: U.S. politics, cultural hybridity, and ambivalent identity in Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex". International Fiction Review. New Brunswick: University of New Brunswick. Archived from the original on April 25, 2012. Retrieved April 23, 2010.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, p. 9.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, p. 206.
- ^ Mullan, John (November 18, 2011). "Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides—Week two: foreknowledge". The Guardian. Archived from the original on May 7, 2013. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
- Nielsen Company: 977. July 15, 2002. Archived from the originalon March 31, 2012.
- ^ a b Begley, Adam (September 8, 2002). "Hermaphrodite's History Is a Storyteller's Bonanza". The New York Observer. New York. Archived from the original on August 9, 2011. Retrieved February 26, 2010.
- ^ Cohen 2007, p. 378.
- ^ a b c O'Nan, Stewart (September 2002). "Middlesex". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011. Retrieved March 21, 2010.
- ^ Wilkinson, Joanne (June 1, 2002). "Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex". Booklist. 98. Chicago: American Library Association: 1644. Archived from the original on March 23, 2012. Retrieved September 2, 2011.
- ^ a b Wood, James (October 7, 2002). Hunter, Jeffrey W (ed.). "Unions". The New Republic. Vol. 227, no. 15. Washington, D.C. pp. 31–34. Archived from the original on September 11, 2011. Retrieved September 2, 2011.
- ^ Freeman, John (September 29, 2002). "'Middlesex' plumbs depth of displacement". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Pittsburgh. Archived from the original on November 25, 2009. Retrieved February 15, 2010.
- ^ a b c Wheelwright, Julie (October 19, 2002). "Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on May 13, 2010. Retrieved February 15, 2010.
- ISBN 1-58765-129-7.
- ^ a b Womack, Kenneth; Mallory-Kani, Amy (September 1, 2007). "'Why don't you just leave it up to nature?': an adaptationist reading of the novels of Jeffrey Eugenides". Mosaic. Winnipeg, Manitoba: University of Manitoba. Retrieved April 26, 2010. (subscription required)
- ^ a b c Kakutani, Michiko (September 3, 2002). "The American Dream Seen in a Child's Nightmare". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved February 26, 2010.
- ^ Casino, Katrina (April 21, 2010). "'Middlesex' observes family unit through intersex lens". The Eagle. Washington, D.C.: American University. Archived from the original on July 16, 2011. Retrieved April 26, 2010.
- ^ a b c d Zecker 2008, p. 178.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, p. 97.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, p. 169.
- ^ Zecker 2008, p. 9.
- ^ Zecker 2008, p. 190.
- ^ Carroll 2009, pp. 189–190.
- ^ Perkins, Wendy (2007). Milne, Ira Mark (ed.). "Critical Essay on 'Middlesex'". Novels for Students. 24. Detroit: Gale.
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- ^ a b Eshelman 2008, p. 27.
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- ^ a b c d Lee 2009, p. 33.
- ^ Lee 2009, p. 34.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, p. 82.
- ^ Lee 2009, p. 35.
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- ^ Carroll 2009, p. 189.
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- ^ Graham 2009, p. 7.
- ^ a b Linklater, Alexander (September 23, 2002). "Life as a girl when you're a boy". Evening Standard. London. Archived from the original on June 5, 2011. Retrieved April 15, 2010.
- ^ a b Bartkowski 2008, p. 40.
- ^ a b Salij, Marta (September 25, 2002). "Neither here nor there: 'Middlesex' is about a girl who becomes a boy and the division between Detroit and Grosse Pointe". Detroit Free Press. Detroit. Retrieved March 21, 2010. (subscription required)
- ^ Sykes 2007, p. 92.
- ^ a b Eugenides 2002, p. 4.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, p. 19.
- ^ Lippa 2005, p. 119.
- ^ a b Lippa 2005, p. 120.
- ^ Engel & McCann 2009, p. 141.
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- ^ Aragon 2006, p. 197.
- ^ a b c d Aragon 2006, p. 194.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, p. 479.
- ^ a b c d Aragon 2006, p. 195.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, p. 304.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, p. 322.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, p. 371.
- ^ Holmes 2008, p. 91.
- ^ a b Warnke 2007, p. 27.
- ^ Holmes 2008, p. 93.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, p. 166.
- ^ Carroll 2009, p. 195.
- ^ Carroll 2009, p. 200.
- ^ Bartkowski 2008, p. 41.
- ^ Eugenides 2002, p. 430.
- ^ Bartkowski 2008, pp. 41–42.
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{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2024 (link - ^ Banner 2010, pp. 860–861.
- . (subscription required)
- ^ Banner 2010, p. 861.
- ^ Deresiewicz, William (October 16, 2011). "The Marriage Plot: Jeffrey Eugenides on Liberal Arts Graduates in Love". The New York Times. New York. Archived from the original on December 8, 2011. Retrieved December 9, 2011.
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- Bibliography
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- Bartkowski, Frances (2008). Kissing Cousins: A New Kinship Bestiary. New York: ISBN 978-0-231-14452-0.
- Bonanos, Christopher (2005). Gods, Heroes, and Philosophers: A Celebration of All Things Greek. New York: ISBN 0-8065-2674-2.
- Carroll, Rachel (December 24, 2009). "Retrospective Sex: Rewriting Intersexuality in Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex". S2CID 85458054.
- Chu, Patricia E. (2009). "D(NA) Coding the Ethnic: Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex". Novel: A Forum on Fiction. 42 (2). Durham, North Carolina: .
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- Funke, Jana (2009). "Eugenides, Jeffrey". In Hamilton, Geoff; Jones, Brian (eds.). Encyclopedia of Contemporary Writers and Their Work. New York: ISBN 978-0-8160-7578-2.
- Fischer, Heinz Dietrich; Fischer, Erika J. (2007). Chronicle of the Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction: Discussions, Decisions, and Documents. Munich: ISBN 978-3-598-30191-9.
- Graham, Sarah (October 2009). "'See Synonyms at Monster': En-freaking Transgender in Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex". Ariel. 40 (4). Calgary, Alberta: University of Calgary: 1–18. Archived from the original on March 31, 2012. Retrieved September 2, 2011.
- Hillman, Thea (2002). "Made-for-TV Movie Version: Middlesex". Lambda Book Report. 11 (3). Los Angeles: ISSN 1048-9487.
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- Lee, Merton (2009). "Why Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex is so Inoffensive". Critique. 51 (1). London: S2CID 162364729.
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- Salinsky, John; Heath, Iona; Salinsky, Mary (2009). The Green Bookshop: Recommended Reading for Doctors and Others from the Medical Journal Education for Primary Care. Abingdon: Radcliffe Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84619-330-9.
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- Sykes, John D. (2007). "Two Natures: Chalcedon and Coming-of-Age in O'Connor's 'A Temple of the Holy Ghost'". Flannery O'Connor Review. 5. Milledgeville, Georgia: Georgia College & State University: 89–98.
- Taberner, Stuart (2007). Contemporary German Fiction: Writing in the Berlin Republic. Cambridge: ISBN 978-0-521-86078-9.
- Warnke, Georgia (2007). After Identity: Rethinking Race, Sex, and Gender. Cambridge: ISBN 978-0-521-70929-3.
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External links
- Middlesex at Oprah's Book Club
- Middlesex at The Pulitzer Prizes
- Middlesex in libraries (WorldCat catalog)