"Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides

The central protaganist of the story is Calliope (or 'Cal' as he is later known), who was born a girl but is actually more a guy. This novel is narrated in the first person by him, and details the fascinating and humourous genetic history of the Stephanides family, all three generations of it.

I first saw this book in a bookshop a few minutes before I was due to rush off to watch a movie with friends. Reading the first few had me chuckling, and rather reluctant to leave the book, so the next time I had the chance, I bought the book to read, thinking that I will satisfy my curiousity about the book in the 10-hour to-fro bus ride to KL and back.

I didn't finish it at the bus ride, because I was distracted by clouds, a breathtaking landscape, and most of all, sleep. It took me a couple more readings to finish it, but at the end, I think it's quite a decent book, with its share of humour and sad moments.

Eugenides has a flair for telling a story of such epic proportions (any story that spans several generations in a telling qualifies as 'epic' for me), and I really enjoyed the way he wrote about the fortunes of the Stephanides family, first as an immigrant family in America experiencing all the strangeness of the melting pot culture, then as an all-American family in which the younger generation only knew of their grandparents' beginnings through the eyes of their elders.

Cal's struggles in finding his own sexual identity were quite touching as well. I liked that Eugenides gave play to the fact that Calliope started off wanting to be just any other girl, but finishes off eventually coming to terms with the fact that he is actually more male than female. Of taking time off to find himself, of having the courage, especially, to do so. A coming of age with a twist.

Also interpersed in Cal's flashbacks of his family history are moments of his present life. In his wariness to believe that someone will eventually accept him, and then, when someone really does, I thought it was a very nice ending to a story that starts off because of a deficient gene.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5