(He thought that American readers were more likely to be shocked by this than European readers.)īiological accuracy was clearly Eugenides's priority. So he had done his best, to the exasperation of some readers, to normalise the incest – to remove it from morality. If this were an Ibsen play, we would be thinking of the sins of one generation being visited upon another, he said. There was, he conceded, a tricky narrative issue here that readers often spotted: the possible implication that Cal's condition was the consequence of 'immorality'.

'I needed some kind of story to catch this idea.' There had to be an explanation as to why this mutation had taken root and 'flowered' over many generations. Cal's 5-Alpha-reductase deficiency syndrome was caused by a recessive genetic mutation as a result of inbreeding. And, as he explained, the incest device is biologically necessary. The characters come from a deeply insular community whose members are all inter-related. It may feel like a shocking turn of the narrative, but the author explained that he had done everything he could to make it seem unsurprising. In our discussion, Eugenides conceded that 'some readers have thrown the book across the room' at the moment, early in the novel, when Lefty and Desdemona consummate their affection.

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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