I had only heard about this Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides fairly recently from someone who I trust as far as books go. And she liked it. I was planning on reading it relatively soon anyway, so this read-a-long was timed pretty well for me. I'm really excited to discuss a book in February and March with people in the blogging community. Normally discussing books while I'm reading them makes me sort of uncomfortable, but I need to get over that. Back to the point, here's what it's about:
“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver’s license…records my first name simply as Cal.”
So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of 1967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic. (from goodreads)
Sounds interesting, right? If you want to check out the read-a-long, visit Unputdownables. The first discussion is happening on February 10th over there. Come watch me not know how to put my feelings into words!