Middlesex

In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, becomes infatuated with a chain-smoking, strawberry-blond classmate known for her acting talent. This secret passion leads Callie to question her identity, revealing that she is not like other girls. Cal is born twice: first as a baby girl, and then, fourteen years later, as a teenage boy. This genetic secret has been passed through nine generations of the Stephanides family, beginning with Lefty and Desdemona, who fled the Ottoman Empire for a new life in America. Their son, Milton, escaped the Detroit race riots and built a hot-dog empire. Now, this mutation is about to come to light for Calliope. At fourteen, she is a skinny, flat-chested girl with the faint hint of a mustache, facing challenges that extend beyond her appearance. Her story spans three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family, tracing their journey from a village near Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, experiencing its vibrant history and the tumult of the 1967 race riots, before settling in the suburban streets of Grosse Pointe, Michigan. As Calliope navigates her adolescence, the revelation of her unique family history adds complexity to her life.