What is the setting in the novel, Middlesex?

Middlesex spans continents and generations: It begins in a village in Turkey, inhabited by ethnic Greeks, and moves to Detroit, Michigan with brief interludes in New York City and San Francisco, California; both these cities play a metaphorical role in the novel, acting as portals where people can be reborn (Lefty and Desdemona in New York, Cal in San Francisco). The novel is told from the perspective of 2001, recounting events primarily from 1922 to 1975; Cal’s life between the initial tenuous acceptance of his male gender identity to his arrival in 2001 Berlin is only intermittently touched upon. Berlin, too, is a metaphorical city: a metropolis divided for decades into two, now in the process of healing into a unified whole, just as Cal tries to reconcile the duality of his gender.

Detroit (and its environs) is the primary setting. The city’s slow decline over the fifty plus years of the novel mirrors the erosion of the Stephanides identity as Greeks as they assimilate into Americans. The fortunes of the city reflect those of the Stephanides: when Detroit implodes, so do the fortunes of the Stephanides. Fortunately, the Stephanides have a safety net in their insurance policy which allows them to participate in the migration to suburbia, where most whites flee as the city declines – the ultimate expression of the twentieth century American Dream. The ethnic Stephanides are not welcomed into upper class white society, which is reflected in the brutal race divisions in Detroit. The history of the city is woven throughout the narrative, creating a strong, specific sense of place and anchoring the novel in reality. And just as the Stephanides have opportunities to be reborn throughout their lives, Cal is hopeful that Detroit itself can undergo regeneration, rising from the ashes like the mythological phoenix on its flag.