I grew up in Grosse Pointe, MI—a quiet Detroit suburb that also happens to be the hometown of author Jeffrey Eugenides. In Grosse Pointe, there is a street named "Middlesex." In his 2002 novel "Middlesex," Eugenides has the Stephanides family move to this street to escape the 1967 Detroit riots. But "Middlesex" has a different meaning in this story. The protagonist of the book was born with a chromosomal mutation that gave them both male and female characteristics. Despite being a genetic male, the child's parents named them "Calliope" and raised them as a girl. Calliope learned the truth at age 14, when a doctor revealed the anomaly and suggested sexual reassignment surgery to reinforce female traits. Threatened with castration, Calliope ran away to California, changed their name to Cal, and began living as a male.

But this book is more than Calliope/Cal's story. Eugenides takes us back to the child's grandparents - a brother and sister from a small town in Turkey, whose marriage passed on a recession gene to their son, Milton. When Milton married his cousin, the inbreeding resulted in their hermaphrodite child.

Eugenides takes us through the lives and struggles of three generations: immigrants trying to assimilate into American society, the stress of building a business amid the urban unrest of the 1960s, and the identity crisis of the protagonist. It is an epic tale that frequently switches characters and time periods, but always moves forward.

In addition to the shifts in time, the book also shifts the perspective of the characters, and even shifts the narration from first to third person. Adult Cal relates the story, but often shifts to the third person when talking about his time as Calliope.

Sometimes, Eugenides makes the story surreal. A scene late in the novel reveals the hallucinations that go through the mind of a man dying in a car crash. Cal refers to some characters only by nicknames. He refers to his first crush only as "Obscure Object" and to his brother as "Chapter 11."

"Middlesex" is a story of generational trauma, family secrets, and significant life transitions. It is an epic tale that warns of external and internal dangers.