Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides)

Insest, sex, gender, love, sexuality, abnormality, belonging, sex.... Oh, I said sex already? Sorry.

The novel by Jeffrey Eugenides (author of the Virgin Suicides) is the enthralling epic of a Greek family come to America and the tracing of their genetic blunders down to the third generation when--oops--a little something strange appeared. We are all a product of the past, a concoction of the events and characteristics of the people who came before. The narrator of this book just gets to consciously tag along, watching over grandparents' shoulders like a disembodied, time-travelling fairy. From the old world to the new, from World War I to the 1970s, this narrator reveals rich, compelling characters that you love despite their faults, that your heart pangs for when you realize (before they do) what is truly going on.

Sit down, hold on, clear your schedule and make way for Middlesex: a book that won the Pulitzer Prize for damn good reason by an author who has never failed to disappoint me. Eugenides takes the family epic, a plotline usually reserved for light historical fiction or sweeping romances, and elevates it to the highest level of literary fiction. Jeffrey, if you are out there somewhere, will you adopt me/teach me/trade places with me? I promise to call you a genius everyday, bring coffee into your office and feed paper sheet by sheet into the back of your typewriter if you promise to pound out another book to entertain, fascinate and move me.