Book Review: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

This is the book people were most surprised that I hadn't read. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and a bestseller catalyzed by an Oprah's Book Club nod, it had both popular and critical acclaim. The novel features an intersex protagonist, and given my interest in matters of gender, this seemed a natural book of interest to me. But the clincher is that the story of a Greek-American family that builds a life in mid-century America had gained renown as an epic of Detroit, the strange and fascinating city I'm so interested in. You haven't read Middlesex? Well, I'd been meaning to. For about ten years. When I had a few article assignments this fall that involved interviewing Jeffrey Eugenides and reviewing his new novel, The Marriage Plot (which I adored a million times over), it was finally my responsibility to pick this one up.

The result? Mixed feelings.

In what verges on a first-person omniscient story, Middlesex features Cal Stephenides, a man living in Berlin who grew up as a girl before his intersex identity was discovered in his mid-teens. In telling his story, Cal tries to trace the history of the gene that resulted in his physicality -- meaning, the story spans generations, beginning with Cal's grandparents. Desdemona and Lefty, who escape Greece when it is lit on fire and arrive at a Detroit train station (yes, that one) in the 1920s. From there, things move at a quick clip in a family story that intersects with America's story: immigrant assimilation, bootlegging liqueur between Detroit and Ontario,  Henry Ford's "melting pot" factories, blind pigs, the Nation of Islam in the city's "Black Bottom", urban rebellion in 1967, white flight, ethnic redlining, burlesque shows, new cars, Orthodox churches, hitch-hiking, and private schools. Eugenides' story thrives on mythological allusion, giving this uniquely American story the heft of an ancient epic.

Middlesex moves between modern-day Cal -- who is tentatively pursuing a relationship with a woman, but struggling with whether he can trust her with his physical form -- and the Stephinides family's past. The modern-day sections are far weaker: Cal of the present is far less interesting than Cal of the past. His storyline in Germany seems so completely centered on being intersex, and specifically with how that relates to having sex with a partner, that Cal seems stripped of all other characteristics. He therefore seems set up for novelty; an almost voyeuristic peek for readers on how an intersex person pursues dating and sex. This is underscored by the fact that, given its position in the present-day, the sweeping story of past generations seems designed to lead us only to this particular crises, inflating its importance to the point of absurdity. Now, I get that Cal is very realistically fixated on his physicality and how others will, or won't respond to it. I empathize with his search for a partner with whom he can share joy and vulnerability. But setting this up as the endpoint of all that came before -- not just in his own life, but in the lives of his grandparents and parents -- feels narcissistic and off-note.

Fixed in Cal's voice, even when Cal isn't present, the prose of the novel is often exhilarating, breathless, potent, and eager for emblems in ordinary happenings. There is a compelling mood that threads together a wide-ranging story. Cal's humor brings a shine to the novel's pages; his cleverness brings intrigue. There is, however, a restlessness in the prose that sometimes grates: an overuse of ellipses, for example, that are ultimately nothing more than melodrama. This was accentuated by the novel's explicitly cinematic language: transitions between scenes involve words like "cue" and "curtains." While Cal is interested in tracing the pattern of genes and chance that shaped his body and, therefore, his life, the biology of the book is turned operatic to the point of distracting imprecision.The word "hermaphrodite" is seriously overused.

I will say that Middlesex does bring with it a lot of joys. There are surprising turns in the story that had me drop my jaw. The dynamism of an ensemble cast is done really well here, and many characters -- like Desdemona, Lefty, and "The Obscure Object" -- I missed when they were gone. Tenses and vantage points shift at a frenetic pace, serving the novels "past is always present" theme and giving the reader the experience of that discomfiting truth. And it's enormous fun to see the novel sing along the Detroit streets I knew, or thought I knew: a song of alarm and love, weirdness and grandiosity, grime and throat-clutching beauty. Eugenides had guts to take this story on: this was, after all, only his second novel.

Comments

[Ben]

I got the Marriage Plot for my wife for Christmas and she's loving it right now! I may have to send her this way if she's looking for something a bit more when she's done.

[Jacob Corvidae]

Hmmm.... You know, I enjoyed the book, the romp through Detroit history and the exploration of the generations (and therefore some cultural context for the character) leading up to this intersex main character. But knowing it as a romp is important, and I think you nailed it that there's much that's awkward about this book.

The major glaring plot sin in my impression was making the claim that these fictional characters were not just engaged in the historical events of Detroit, but that they actually become part of creating it in implausible and I think offensive ways - namely the Nation of Islam subplot. That was the piece that took it over the edge from romp to annoyance.

Great review.

[Anna Clark]

Ben: Good choice! Of JE's books, The Marriage Plot is by far my favorite, but maybe Middlesex will be a hit with her too. JE also wrote The Virgin Suicides, which I couldn't get through for a number of reasons, but a lot of people love.

Jacob: I think you're right in pointing to the Nation of Islam subplot as the one that most reveals the problems of a good book with real weaknesses. It is weirdly colonial in how it overtakes history with the fictional story, claiming it for its own narrative. And to what purpose? If I remember correctly, it's a point of drama that doesn't particularly tie in with anything that comes afterward in the novel, either related to the paths of the fictional characters or to the unfolding history. This makes the "ta-DA!" moment feel exploitative. I mean, this was a real-life person.

I taught my grad school class on using real-life people as characters in fiction. I've got a sudden itch to look that up, and see how what I said does/doesn't apply to this conversation. Hmm...

[Buried In Print]

I haven't read this one yet, either, but I'm looking forward to it; I attended a reading/interview with JE last autumn and was quite impressed.

[Kells]

There was an interview with JE on The Book Report a couple of days ago, It was quite a good interview as they go. I have Read The Marriage Plot and was not entirely impressed, but this one may be better, I suppose different styles for everyone. Go have a look at the interview if your interested www.bookreportradio.com