Middlesex Book Summary

Middlesex Book (Jeffrey Eugenides, 2002) Summary

(Contains spoilers)

Middlesex is a novel that spans over three generations and two continents. The author describes the story of a family and a secret carried from Greece to America. The main character, Calliope Stephanides, narrates the history of her family and the origin of a gene mutation that would eventually wind up in her DNA, giving her a unique genetic make-up and long troubled identity. Calliope introduces herself as having the body and genes of a boy, but was raised as a girl.

Calliope starts her story in the small village of Bithynios, Greece during the 1920s. The country had been ruined by war with the Turks and by the time Calliope's grandfather, Lefty Stephanides, was of age to marry, there were only two bachelorettes to choose from. Her grandparents were very close after having lost their parents to war. Lefty falls in love with his sister Desdemona. The two are forced to flee their country after invasion by the Turks.

The couple gets married during the ship ride to America. After arriving at Ellis Island in New York, they take a train to Detroit, Michigan where they move in with their cousin Sourmelina and her husband. Sourmelina's husband, Jimmy Zizmo, helped Lefty get a job at Ford Automotive Factory. Lefty worked there for a short period before joining Zizmo's illegal rum-running operation.

In Detroit  the couple gives birth to a son, Milton, and a daughter, Zoe. Sourmelina and her husband have one daughter named Tessie. After Zoe was born, Sourmelina, whose husband had died while rum-running, moved out with Tessie to the home directly behind the Stephanides'.

As Milton grows into a young man, he and Tessie start to fall in love. Desdemona noticed that love is growing between two second cousins, so she tried to break off the affair between Milton and Tessie. After joining the Navy during World War II, Milton won the heart of Tessie after she broke off an engagement to Michael Antoniou, their future pastor. Milton's sister, Zoe, ends up marrying Father Mike later in the novel.

Milton and Tessie get married and give birth to their son, Chapter 11. However the couple desperately wanted a girl. After receiving advice from Uncle Pete, a chiropractor, Milton found that he could impregnate his wife with "female" sperm when her temperature was higher than normal so that she can conceive a girl. After this procedure, they gave birth to their daughter, Calliope Stephanides in 1960.

Calliope was born into a normal, functional, middle class family. After Lefty gambles all his savings away, he and Desdemona move in with Milton and Tessie in their new home on Middlesex Boulevard. It is not till she reaches puberty that Calliope's body begins to change. Calliope fails to being menstruation long after her peers begin their periods.

As a teenager, she begins a love affair with a girl in school she addresses as the Obscure Object. During a summer spent with the Obscure Object, she drinks alcohol and smokes marijuana with her and two other boys. They engage in sex, Calliope with the Object's brother and the Object with a friend of hers.

Later that summer, Calliope and the Obscure Object being having nightly affairs. The Object's brother notices this and mocks their relationship. This leads to Calliope's accident with a tractor. Calliope is rushed to the hospital where doctors tend to her wounds and discover that her genitalia is improperly constructed.

Calliope's parents take her to a specialist in New York City. Dr. Luce, a sexual disorders and gender identity specialist, studied Calliope's history and anatomy for two weeks. After conducting his study, he came to the conclusion that sex of rearing, rather than genetic determinants, plays a greater role in the establishment of gender identity. Dr. Luce wanted to perform a feminizing surgery and give Calliope hormone treatment so she could pass in society as a female.

When Calliope read Dr. Luce's report she decided to run away to California. Calliope changed her name to Cal and hitched hiked his way to San Francisco where he found himself living among other homeless adolescent males in Golden Gate Park. After a frightening rape attempt by older homeless men, Cal called a man he had met while hitch hiking.

This man, named Bob Presto, offered Cal a job at his strip club. Presto worked Cal with other hermaphrodites in a peep show. Cal lived with his coworker for a few months before Presto's club was raided by police officers searching for underage workers. The police officers brought Cal to the station where he was forced to call home.

Cal called home and Chapter Eleven informed him that his father died in a car accident while trying to pay ransom for their child's safe return. Chapter Eleven flew to San Francisco to pick up Cal in jail. He and Cal returned home in time to attend their father's funeral. After deciding to stay home and care for his dying grandmother Desdemona, Cal learned that the cause of his gene disorder is because his grandparents were siblings. Understandingly, Cal promised his grandmother not to tell her secret until after her death.