Tessie

What was your impression of Tessie? Did she seem kind of vaguely developed to you? And, if so, did that seem intentional, like she was just supposed to be one of those moms who blend into the background? I remember one passage in the book where Cal likens himself to his mom and says they both liked to just watch people and hang back rather than being the center of attention. That made a certain amount of sense. But I also kind of expected something bolder from her character, given who her parents were.

Cars, cars, cars

One could write an essay on the use of the automobile in "Middlesex." It's one of the uber-American things about the novel. Not only is the book set in Motor Town, but a lot of important scenes take place in cars, like Zizmo's fake death and Milton's real death, Lefty's "photograph" business that paired sexy women and cars, the bootlegging business, Sourmelina's use of Zizmo's car as a show of independence, Desdemona's distrust of cars, Lefty's job at the Ford plant, Cal's odyssey across the country in strangers' cars, Cal's first and last kiss with the Object in the farmer's car after the accident, and Milton's obsession with Cadillacs. This last really resonated with me because my grandparents always had two Cadillacs, one for him and one for her, those super gigantic ones that were the ubiquitous and unimaginative status symbol of the business class.

Cal gives the best description of a Cadillac I've ever encountered: It was like climbing into someone's wallet.

Weird

Did you have a sense that the narrator was saying something particular about human sexuality? It's weird, but Cal seemed the most "normal" to me, or maybe "conventional" is the better word. I mean, we have the grandparents who were actually siblings (we can say circumstances forced them together, but really they liked each other before that), and Sourmelina who was gay, and the Object who was probably gay, and the parents who, weirdest of all, got off on that clarinet fetish. Cal was really just a guy who liked girls.

Kim's pick

"Maus: A Survivor's Tale" is a Holocaust memoir by Art Spiegelman. It won a special Pulitzer in 1992. I've read some graphic narratives by Alison Bechdel and Marjane Satrapi that I dearly loved, even though I'm not generally drawn to the graphic genre, and they both acknowledged a huge debt to Spiegelman as a mentor who tackled serious subject matter in comic book form. There's actually Maus I and Maus II, and I'm guessing that we'll want to read both.

Greeks modern and ancient

The narrator refers to his story as "my midwestern Epidaurus" and says Jimmy Zizmo is "the one wearing the biggest mask." What did you think he meant by this?

Beauty

Julie says, "Beauty is always freakish." (p. 217)

For me, this foreshadowed her acceptance of Cal's uniqueness. Do you think this is a view of beauty the narrator shares?

Place and person

The narrator refers to the street of his childhood home as Middlesex Boulevard and to the house as Middlesex. And, of course, there's the natural allusion to his body as being a kind of middle sex. What connections do you think the author intended us to make here?

(There's an awesome description of the house on p. 258).

Father Mike

There were clues aplenty that Father Mike wasn't the holy man he was cracked up to be, but did you ever suspect that he was such a scoundrel at heart?

End of the land sadness

What do you think the San Francisco chapters contributed to the narrative?

History and truthiness

It's easy to imagine Cal's story being more isolated and condensed. The novel could have just focused on his development and personal issues with a mere summary of the grandparents sufficient to explain the genetic mutation that shaped Cal's life. Instead, Eugenides chose to write a sweeping, panoramic portrait of a fictional family and a real city.

A couple of passages stood out to me in regard to this.

One is where Callie is talking about how she routinely lied to Dr. Luce, who, significantly, she says was the first person to encourage her writing. He didn't know, of course, that I was making up most of what I wrote, pretending to be the all-American daughter my parents wanted me to be. I fictionalized early "sex play" and later crushes on boys; I transferred my feelings for the Object onto Jerome and it was amazing how it worked: the tiniest bit of truth made credible the greatest lies.(p. 418)

This last sentence gave me pause, because it made me briefly question the veracity of the narrator, and I wondered whether the interweaving of real history into the story was meant to be the tiny bit of truth that would (cleverly!) make credible the "lies" of the book. Did you have any reaction to that passage?

Another passage that struck me as telling in relation to the structure of the novel was this: ...living sends a person not into the future but back into the past, to childhood and before birth, finally, to commune with the dead. You get older, you puff on the stairs, you enter the body of your father. From there it's only a quick jump to your grandparents, and then before you know it you're time-traveling. In this life we grow backwards. It's always the gray-haired tourists on Italian buses who can tell you something about the Etruscans.(p. 425)

The future

The last line of the book is "I lost track after a while, happy to be home, weeping for my father, and thinking about what was next." What do you think is next for Cal? Do you think his relationship with Julie will be successful?

Home

The novel presents a vivid portrait of Detroit and its history, and I was reminded somewhat of our discussion of Afghanistan as presented in "A Thousand Splendid Suns." The author of "Middlesex" also displays a great love for his home, I think, as much for its faults as its charms. What were your impressions about the depiction of the city?

The Obscure Object

What are your thoughts on The Obscure Object? What role did she play in Cal's character development?

I was absolutely enthralled by the Obscure Object chapters. The tension and the eroticism of some scenes was stunning to me.

I turned the light off. I pressed against the Object. I took the backs of her thighs in my hands, adjusting her legs around my waist. I reached under her. I brought her up to me. And then my body, like a cathedral, broke out into ringing. The hunchback in the belfry had jumped and was swinging madly on the rope.

The scene on the porch was also quite memorable. I loved it. But frankly, it all just seemed a bit too sophisticated for 14-year-old girls. Did anyone else have that sense?

Chapter Eleven

Other than The Obscure Object, Chapter Eleven is the only character who is never named and his nickname never explained. Cal says he won't name The Obscure Object to protect her identity. He gives no such reasoning for Chapter Eleven.

In a Q&A on the Oprah Web site, Eugenides addresses the issue:

I am confused about why you refer to Cal's brother as Chapter Eleven, yet at other times you refer to him by his given name? — Stacy S.

Cal, the narrator of Middlesex, never refers to Chapter Eleven by his given name. Neither does anyone in the book. The nickname, "Chapter Eleven," is bestowed on Cal's brother by Cal himself, retroactively, in the act of writing the book. If you can find a place where Chapter Eleven is called something else, Stacy, let me know, but I'd be very surprised. His "given name" is something I didn't give the reader.

As for the meaning of the nickname, that's another story. The character of Chapter Eleven is introduced in the first pages of the novel but it's not until page 512 that Cal provides clues as to what this name means. There's a long passage where Cal sketches what will happen to his brother in the years to come, but, unlike just about every other Stephanides family story, Cal elects not to go into it. Still, the hints are there and include the maxing out of credit cards, etc., all of which point to a situation that might involve something known in U.S. tax law as Chapter 11.

By the way, Stacy, your question is the question I get asked most often by readers of the book. The name "Chapter Eleven" really confuses people in Europe and Asia, as you might imagine. (No one files for Chapter 11 in Japan.) In some cases, Germany, for instance, where I know the language, I've worked with my translators to come up with an alternative. In the German edition of Middlesex, Chapter Eleven is called Der Pleitegeier. This refers to the circling buzzard that presages doom, usually of the financial variety. — Jeffrey Eugenides

So that clears up what the nickname means. My question is, why? Why doesn't Cal reveal his brother's given name? Any ideas?

My Big Fat Greek Genetic Mutation

What do you think the Greek cultural background adds to the novel?

Destiny

There's much talk in the book about fate, chance, God, self-determination -- and the way circumstances and decisions line up to produce the facts of Cal's life. Do you think there's an overriding message? Does Cal believe his life is directed by fate, chance, free will, a combination?

Narrative voice

What did you think of the narrative style? For example, the way Cal tells the story of his family before he was born. He gives details, elaborates, and then occasionally interrupts the story to draw attention to himself and the artifice of his story, such as this section as Lefty and Desdemona are on their way to Detroit:

To be honest, the amusement grounds should be closed at this hour, but, for my own purposes, tonight Electric Park is open all night, and the fog suddenly lifts, all so that my grandfather can look out the window and see a roller coaster streaking down the track. A moment of cheap symbolism only, and then I have to bow to the strict rules of realism, which is to say: they can't see a thing.

Also, did you find yourself thinking of the narrator as a particular gender? For some reason, I thought of the narrator as female for most of the book, even though I knew that Calliope would wind up as Cal. Was that just me?

Favorites

What were your favorite scenes or sections of the book? I had SO many favorites, but for starters, I thought Milton's death scene was brilliant. It was so touching and beautiful. And it really made me feel for this character, maybe for the first time in the book.

He was crying not because he was about to die but because I, Calliope, was still gone, because he had failed to save me, because he had done everything he could to get me back and still I was missing.

As the car tipped its nose down, the river appeared again. Milton Stephanides, an old navy man, prepared to meet it. Right at the end he was no longer thinking about me. I have to be honest and record Milton's thoughts as they occurred to him. At the very end he wasn't thinking about me or Tessie or any of us. There was no time. As the car plunged, Milton only had time to be astonished by the way things had turned out. All his life he had lectured everybody about the right way to do things and now he had done this, the stupidest thing ever. He could hardly believe he had loused things up quite so badly. His last word, therefore, was spoken softly, without anger or fear, only with bewilderment and a measure of bravery. "Birdbrain," Milton said, to himself, in his last Cadillac. And then the water claimed him.

Update

When do we start discussing the next book?