Middlesex

By: Jeffrey Eugenides

Narrated by: Kristoffer Tabori

Length: 21 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry-blonde classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them - along with Callie's failure to develop physically - leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.

The explanation for this shocking state of affairs is a rare genetic mutation - and a guilty secret - that have followed Callie's grandparents from the crumbling Ottoman Empire to Prohibition-era Detroit and beyond, outlasting the glory days of the Motor City, the race riots of 1967, and the family's second migration, into the foreign country known as suburbia. Thanks to the gene, Callie is part girl, part boy. And even though the gene's epic travels have ended, her own odyssey has only begun.

Spanning eight decades - and one unusually awkward adolescence - Jeffrey Eugenides' long-awaited second novel is a grand, original fable of crossed bloodlines, the intricacies of gender, and the deep, untidy promptings of desire.

Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Audie Award for best unabridged fiction, Middlesex marks the fulfillment of a huge talent, named one of America's best young novelists by both Granta and The New Yorker.

Check out more selections from Oprah's Book Club.

©2002 Jeffrey Eugenides (P)2002 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC

Critic reviews

Audie Award Winner, Fiction (Unabridged), 2003

"Eugenides proves that he is not only a unique voice in modern literature but also well versed in the nature of the human heart. Highly recommended." (Library Journal )

"Not only are his interpretations of the characters astonishingly credible, but his internalization of the narrative is nothing short of amazing." (Publishers Weekly)

"A towering achievement...a story that manages to be both illuminating and transcendent...[Eugenides] has emerged as the great American writer many of us suspected him of being." (Los Angeles Times Book Review)

Amazing Narrator!

The story was excellent but the narrator brought it to life...so great to listen to!

Painfully long and not engaging.

It was not compelling enough to make me care to finish.

The best thing is the narrator. Everyone I respect has recommended this book. We have it in paperback and I couldn’t get far so decided to listen on my long daily commute. I learned a little about history but not enough to warrant the verbosity without much substance. It’s a boring memoir that weaves past and present with the narrator as self observing past before birth. I never got to the punchline on 5th chromosome because I just gave up. Sunk coat fallacy kept me listening until the epiphany that I was wasting my time and opportunity to listen to something better.

wow

Wow. What an amazing accomplishment. A mesmerizing book read by one of the most dynamic readers I?ve ever had the pleasure of listening to. I actually went through withdrawal when it was finished!! This book has a great deal of heart and an amazing (and addictive) epic quality that makes it difficult to put down. The story twists and turns like a mountain road. Along the way you get to travel (both physically and metaphysically) and even learn a thing or two.

This book stays with you long after after you've turned your MP3 player off........

Difficult at first, but increasingly improves

Would you listen to Middlesex again? Why?

I probably wouldn't listen to it again, it was too long and the beginning portion seemed to drag on and on

What did you like best about this story?

The narrator's voice was interesting and engaging, and his story was the most enthralling part of the book

How could the performance have been better?

If he hadn't put on exaggerated voices for the female characters, it sounded silly and condescending. As well his fake greek accent was distracting

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, it would have been a long haul. Although I did listen to it 3 hours at a time and I didn't lose too much focus during that period.

Must read!

I enjoyed every moment of this book! The narrator is amazing and I definitely recommend it!

Riveting story

This is my first experience with an Audible audiobook and it was awesome. Middlesex was a riveting story from start to finish. Hard to explain to anyone when asked what it is about because it is not only the story of the main character Caliope's physical and emotional life, but that of her ancestors, familiy and friends. The story is rich in character detail and environmental detail. You are literally there in the story with the characters. The narrator is also superb and made the experience even more enjoyable. I listened to this book while gardening and cooking and didn't want to put it down so I got a lot of work done! Thanks Audible books for a great introduction to your service

Wonderful Book

I love this book, the narrator is amazing, he makes the book come to life. The only reason I gave 4 stars instead of 5 is because the transition music is very distracting and annoying. It's usually innapropriate for what's going on in the story and seems unnecessaryto have at all.

A Journey Like None Other

Would you consider the audio edition of Middlesex to be better than the print version?

Middlesex is an amazing faux biographic tale that spans 4-5 generations of Greek immigrants and their fascinating journey that took them from war in their homeland of Turkey to the riots in Detroit,

Middlesex characters are a unique blend from the old and new world and tells all their trials and tribulations of building a new life in America

Who was your favorite character and why?

Calliope/Cal is definitely a one of a kind character, nowhere in my library is there anyone like her/him

Have you listened to any of Kristoffer Tabori’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No but he did an amazing job on Middlesex

If you could take any character from Middlesex out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Milton, just to argue politics.

Any additional comments?

Middlesex is a book that I was able take away a lot of knowledge from, mostly on topics that have never been presented to me before, from the treatment of Immigrants working for The Ford Motor Company, the silk worm industry and it's history, conflicts in Asia Minor, the Detroit riots and of course Hermaphroditism. The books characters are never politically correct and their opinions and attitudes honestly reflect the times they lived in, which is why I kept having to remind myself this is not a true story and somehow these characters are not real.

Outstanding

This was a most outstanding book, with a deep, inciteful and beautifully written story line. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Best I've read

Not at all what I expected, though my expectations were met... And then some. Eugenides' writing style is rich, and Tabori's narration really brings it to life.