Jeffrey Eugenides. MIDDLESEX. Vintage, 2002.
This is a book club selection which I gave notice that I did not intend to read. I bought a copy several years ago thinking it was about a place in England. It is not. It is about the immigration experience in the USA, and later generations of a Greek family coping with gender-identity issues. Not that I object, but I do object to the "trends" manipulating my reading choices.
It annoys me when gender issues (diversity) are implied to be "caused" by abuse. In reading interviews with this writer, he makes it clear that the specific type of "intersexuality" depicted in this story is a genetic condition which is more likely to materialize with incest, each partner bringing part of the damaged gene with them, and that the condition was not visible at birth. Changes occurred to the body with puberty.
The discussion at the September book club was basically a consensus, that the story was too long, too complicated, covering at least three generations of a Greek immigrant family to the USA. People did appreciate the depiction of the afflicted/divergent character's feeling rejected and needing to leave the country to find a private non-judgmental society that would not reject him.
I am not sorry that I did not read it, but it was partly because I was still reading the 600+-page The Secret History. And I really do hate long books. I am a slow reader.
