the library
What is your favorite book? someone always asks.
I don’t know. I haven’t read them all.
But while I’m working on that, I’ll be sharing a few with you here.
First? Middlesex.
What? The first book Pooks lists, and it’s not set in England, nor is it by a British author?
Okay, there won’t be a lot of these, I’ll admit. But this one? This tale of a transgendered teenager in a Greek immigrant family in Detroit is brilliant. It’s compelling. It’s fascinating. It follows the Stephanides family from war-torn Greece to an America that is changing faster than even their own lives. Come for the emotionally gripping story of the transgendered girl and stay for the dramatic saga of family and risk and love. And I thought all that before it won the Pulitzer Prize.
Also, I am compelled to admit, Jeffrey Eugenides and I are both Nicholl Fellows.
Let me repeat that.
I share an honor with a Pulitzer Prize Winner…
… ahem, sorry, I lost myself for a moment there. But yeah, this book. Read it. You won’t be able to put it down.
I read this years ago – it’s brilliant! I had forgotten all about it and am glad I am reminded. Very unusual.
Honestly, I think he wrote a multi-generational saga about an immigrant family that used the transgendered girl to hold it together, rather than a book about a transgendered girl who happened to come from an immigrant family. So richly textured. I listened to it in audiobook format and then went to buy the hardcover so I could own it.