Middlesex

Cal Stephanides, who grew up as a girl named Calliope, tells the story of a rare gene handed down through three generations. It begins with his grandparents, Desdemona and Lefty, who flee war-torn Turkey and marry on the ship to America although they are brother and sister. In the Detroit of the 1920s and 1930s they settle among Ford factories and the first stirrings of the Black Muslim movement, and their son Milton later turns an insurance payout into a chain of hot-dog restaurants. His daughter Callie grows up in the Michigan suburbs of the 1970s, thinking little of how her body differs until she is fourteen, when a first love, medical blunders and her family's history come together.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Family, Migration, Coming of age (assigned by AI)

Set in

United States, Türkiye, 1920s–1970s

First published

2002 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Author's age

42 when first published

ISBN

9780374199692 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, United States)

9780747560920 (Bloomsbury, United Kingdom)

9780312427733 (Picador, United States)

9780008553807 (Fourth Estate, United Kingdom)

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