Middlesex (2002) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Characters/People edit see section history

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• Calliope Helen Stephanides: Narrator.
• Object of Desire: Nickname of Callie's friend, who she is interested in romantically.
• Desdemona Stephanides: Cal's grandmother, Desdemona, is "perfectly designed for blocking people's paths" as she tries to maintain her family's ties to the old world. She reveals a sense of the dramatic whenever she is crossed by fanning herself with her "six atrocity fans" that list crimes committed against Greece. Cal notes: "the ominous, storm-gathering quality" of her fanning becomes "her secret weapon" in this battle.
• Eleutherios Stephanides: Eleutherios, or Lefty as he was known, is Cal's grandfather and Desdemona's husband. His nonconformist nature becomes evident when he frequents gambling and prostitution houses in Greece and convinces his sister to marry him. After he gambles away his money, he and Desdemona live in the attic of Cal's house; he spends his mornings translating Greek poems, while at night he smokes hash in a hookah. Cal develops a close relationship with her "Chaplinesque papou," with his elegant clothes and playful nature.
• Milton Stephanides: Milton is Cal's father and Desdemona's son. He possesses "a flinty self-confidence that protected him like a shell from the world's assaults." Of the family members, he assimilates most successfully: he learns American jazz and business sense. He distances himself further from his homeland when he adopts right-wing politics, identifies with Nixon, and supports the United States so much that he denounces his Greek heritage. His obsession with the American dream distances him from his family as he becomes more preoccupied with his business worries. Cal notes "he began to leave a little more of himself at the diner each day" until he "wasn't really there at all."
• Tessie Stephanides: Tessie Stephanides, born Tessie Zizmo, is Cal's mother. Milton is attracted to her "all-American looks." She is quiet and, like Cal, enjoys watching people. After building her world around her family, she starts to feel useless when Chapter Eleven goes off to college and Cal matures. After Cal leaves, Tessie becomes depressed because her intense motherly devotion is frustrated. That same devotion, however, causes her to accept Cal's sex change from female to male, from a daughter to a son.
• Sourmelina Stephanides: Sourmelina, called Lina, is Desdemona's and Lefty's cousin. Her parents send her to the United States when they discover that she is a lesbian. She successfully assimilates American culture yet retains some ties to her heritage. When she thinks her husband, Jimmy, is dead, she grieves in the Greek style.
• Michael Antoniou: Father Mike, assistant priest at the Greek Orthodox church the family attends, married Zoë, Milton's sister, after Tessie broke off her engagement with him. He is sweet-natured before he marries Zoë, but her constant nagging about how successful her brother is compared to him wears him down and turns him bitter. In a desperate attempt to get enough money to leave Zoë and to get even with Milton for his success in business and in marriage, Father Mike tries to blackmail him.
• Chapter Eleven: Chapter Eleven is the only name that Cal gives to her older brother. As a child, he likes to shoot, hammer, and smash things. He becomes geeky and nerdy as a teenager but turns into a "John Lennon look-alike" at college where he adopts anti-war and anti-establishment views. He ignores Cal for most of her life since they are far apart in age, but the two become closer when Chapter Eleven faces the Vietnam draft. He ultimately shows his loyalty when he rescues Cal from jail in California. His lack of business sense, however, causes him to ruin his father's hot dog franchise.
• Jerome Cavanaugh: Jerome, the Object's brother, is the first boy with whom Cal has sex. He seems to want to have a relationship with Cal, but after Cal rebuffs him, he turns on her and his sister with cruel epithets when he catches them together.
• Zora Khyber: Zora Khyber, a hermaphrodite that works at the sex club, is sympathetic to Cal's gender confusion and so spends a lot of time sharing her extensive research with her. She has a marked violent streak, however, that frightens Cal.
• Julie Kikuchi: Julie is an Asian-American Cal meets in Berlin.
• Dr. Peter Luce: Dr. Luce diagnoses Cal in New York and writes up her case and publishes it. Although he is considered the world's leading authority on hermaphroditism, he misdiagnoses the causes of the condition. Extremely confident in his medical theories, the "brilliant, charming, work-obsessed" Luce, nevertheless "prayed," Cal assumes, that she "would never show up to refute them."
• Bob Presto: Bob Presto runs the sex club where Cal works. He appears to be sympathetic and kind-hearted when he rescues Cal after she is beaten up by the homeless men, but his ultimate goal is financial.
• Clementine Stark: Clementine, Cal's first friend in Grosse Pointe, teaches her how to kiss properly and causes Cal's first feelings of gender confusion.
• Zoë Helen Stephanides: Zoë Stephanides, called Aunt Zo, is Desdemona's and Lefty's daughter, and Cal's aunt. She marries Father Mike by default when Tessie breaks off her engagement with him. Characterized by her good sense of humor and loud talk, she is uncomfortable with the prospect of being a role model as Father Mike's wife. Her jealousy over her brother's good fortune and Mike's obvious affection for Tessie turns Aunt Zo into a nag who constantly berates Mike for his shortcomings. She "never missed a chance to lament her marriage" to him.
• Jimmy Zizmo: Jimmy, who is of unknown ethnic origin, is married to Lina. He is an ex-con, drug dealer, and scam artist whose adaptability becomes evident when he turns quickly from rum-running to proselytizing as the head prophet of the Nation of Islam in Detroit.
• Dr. Nishan Philobosian: The family doctor from Greece who moves to Michigan and continues to practice medicine into his old age. Due to his old fashioned medical practice, he over looks problems.
• Mr. Da Silva: Advanced English Teacher at Callie's private school for girls. He chooses The Object to play Antigone and Callie as Tiresias in the Greek Tragedy Antigone put on by his class. During rehearsals these two classmates begin a many-faceted relationship, starting as Best Friends.
• Sophie Sassoon: Owner of a beauty shop where Callie gets her mustache waxed.
• Rex Reese: A moneyed teenager and potential suitor of The Object. While drunk, he drove into the lake in Grosse Pointe, and the girl who was with was killed. He swam to the shore, and the girl was trapped in the car and drowned.
• Dr. Bauer: A gynecologist who was the father of one of The Object's friends. The Object calls Dr. Bauer a total pervert. Callie's mother makes an appointment with Dr. Bauer for Callie.
• Peter Tatakis: Friend of Callie's parents. He and his wife Phyllis come over for Sunday dinner with the Stephanides family. Peter drives a wine dark Buick.
• Ben Scheer: Add a description of this character.
• Maxine Grossinger
• Marius Wyxzewixard Challouehliczilczese Grimes
• Morrison
• Sister Wanda
• Phillips
• Beulah
• Fard Muhammad: Prophet of sorts.
• Miss Schuyler
• Hugh Hefner
• Myron
• Mrs. O'Toole
• Helga
• Jerry
• Pete Savidis
• Mrs. Object: The Obscure Object's mother.
• Gaia Vasilakis: One of the girls Desdemona tries to set her son Milton up with. Bakes awful cookies.
• Selfridge
• Jimmy Papanikolas
• Lucille Kafkalis: One of the two marriagable girls in Bithynios - consequently, one of two girls that Lefty could possibly marry.
• Hudson Clark fella
• Mrs. Evelyn Watson
• Miss Baker
• Jimmy Fioretos
• Carol Henkel
• Anita Philobosian: Dr. Phil's daughter.
• Hajienestis
• Miss Inglis
• Euphrosyne Stephanides: Desdemona's deceased mother.
• Matt Larson
• Bithynios: The village where Desdemona and Lefty grew up.
• Miss Grotowski
• Judge Stephen J. Roth
• Cleo
• Theodora Zizmo: Jimmy and Sourmelina's daughter. Mother to the narrator. Usually called Tessie.
• Seaman Stephanides: Milton's title when he was in the Navy.
• Charles Berberian
• W. D. Fard: Prophet.
• Bart Skiotis
• O'Malley
• Mr. Object: The Obscure Object's father.
• Marie Rosine
• Melia Salakas: Cal's cousin-in-law by marriage. "You know, Melia!"
• Coach Stork
• Linda Ramirez
• Dr. Craig
• Helen Panos: Lina's "friend".
• Carmen
• Kemal Pasha
• Ellie
• Gus Zaras
• Stepan
• Mrs. Bidzikian
• Mr. Go
• Reetika Chura-swami
• Miss Marsh
• Carol Horning
• Rufus
• Gus Panos
• Mrs. Drexel
• Georgie Pappas
• Eleni Papanikolas
• Rebecca Urbanus
• Sylvia Bresnick
• Phyllis Fioretos
• Kontoulis
• Joanne Maria Barbara Peracchio
• Edward Green
• Miss Barrie
• Dr. Phil — Dr. Phil: Doctor in Smyrnia. Migrates to America with the Stephanides'.
• Dr. Müller
• Plato
• Lynn Harris
• Vicky Logathetis
• Victoria Pappas: One of the two marriagable girls in Bithynios - consequently, one of two girls that Lefty could possibly marry.
• Father Stylianopoulos
• Meg Zemka
• Mustafa Kemal Pasha
• Wierzbicki
• Rosalee
• Tina Kubek
• Gottlieb Göttlich
• Liz Clark
• Ma
• Mr. Stephanides
• SHABAZZ
• St. Christopher
• Lefty Stephanides

Quotes edit see section history

• “I was thinking how amazing it was that the world contained so many lives. Out in these streets people were embroiled in a thousand matters, money problems, love problems, school problems. People were falling in love, getting married, going to drug rehab, learning how to ice-skate, getting bifocals, studying for exams, trying on clothes, getting their hair cut, and getting born. And in some houses people were getting old and sick and were dying, leaving others to grieve. It was happening all the time, unnoticed, and it was the thing that really mattered.”

  Cal

• “Can you see me? All of me? Probably not. No one ever really has.”

• “But in the end it wasn't up to me. The bigs things never are. Birth, I mean, and death. And love. And what love bequeaths to us before we're born.”

• “Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words. I don’t believe in “sadness,” “joy,” or “regret.” Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling.”

• “Historical fact: people stopped being human in 1913. That was the year Henry Ford put his cars on rollers and made his workers adopt the speed of the assembly line.”

• “Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.”

• “I hadn’t gotten old enough yet to realize that living sends a person not into the future but back into the past, to childhood and before birth, finally, to commune with the dead.”

• “we are chained to our bodies, just as our bodies are chained to time.”

• “I want you to but a sign. What if some other woman, she die and she try to steal my husband”

  Desdemona

• “Everyone struggles against despair, but it always wins in the end. It has to. It’s the thing that lets us say goodbye.”

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Grosse Pointe, Michigan
• Detroit
• United States
• Smyrna
• Turkey
• Berlin
• New York
• San Francisco
• Michigan
• Petoskey, Michigan
• Giulia
• San Francisco
• Asia Minor
• Europe
• Smyrna, Turkey
• Greece
• California
• Bursa
• Annapolis
• Zebra Room
• East Side
• Hurlbut Street
• Japan
• France
• Bithynios
• Sambia
• Chicago
• Ellis Island
• London
• Canada
• Florida
• Athens
• Cyprus
• Greektown

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Self-discovery: Describe this theme.
• Sexual Identity
• Coming of Age

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Jeffrey Eugenides (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. William Webb (Cover Artist)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Pulitzer Prize (2003: Fiction)
• Ambassador Book Award (2003: Fiction)
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Finalist: Fiction)
• Stonewall Book Award (2003: Honor Book in Literature)
• International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (Finalist, 2004, Short list)
• National Book Critics Circle Award (Finalist, 2002: Fiction)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3555.U4 M53 2002
• Dewey: 813.54

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Sexual content and some language.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( E ) › Eugenides, Jeffrey
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Wikipedia

More Books Like This edit see section history

Books That Influenced This Book edit see section history

Books That Cite This Book edit see section history