![]() ![]() If you manage to persuade me in this series of Middlesex's value, you'll have achieved something." One visitor to the book club website who objected to the novel's plotting had a challenge – for me as much as for the novelist: "I can't quite articulate what I dislike so much about Middlesex, but it began with the incest, which wasn't a necessary part of the story and which I just found repugnant. The answer is d), and the fact that the couple are also brother and sister provoked some puzzlement. The Oprah Winfrey website even ran a quiz about Middlesex, the second question of which no reader at the Guardian book club would have failed to answer correctly: "In which way are Lefty and Desdemona (the narrator's grandparents) not related? a) third cousins b) brother and sister c) husband and wife d) aunt and nephew". ![]() The novelist confessed to taking a conscious pleasure in the trickery, much influenced by his own academic reading, but claimed to be entirely surprised that he had also produced a bestseller. With its mixture of postmodern narrative trickery and old-fashioned family saga, it had managed to reach an unusual range of readers. ![]() W hen Jeffrey Eugenides came to the Guardian book club to discuss his novel Middlesex, there was admiration of the fact that such a sophisticated book, layered with literary allusions, should also have been a selection for the Oprah Winfrey book club. ![]()
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