Calliope (Cal) Stephanides

Calliope (Cal) Stephanides is the narrator and protagonist of Middlesex. He tells his life story from the age of forty-one as an attractive but slight man prone to double-breasted suits and cigars. Born a hermaphrodite (he has 5-alpha reductase syndrome, which makes him appear female though he is genetically male), Cal spent his first fourteen years living comfortably as a girl, Calliope, only mildly concerned about his attraction to other girls. But upon discovering that genetically he is male, he throws his life into an uproar and transitions into living as a man. Even after twenty-five years, Cal is not entirely comfortable in his own skin, embarrassed by his body and what others will think of it – a physical shame that seems inherited from his mother and grandmother. His self-doubt may come from being raised as a girl during those formative years; Cal lacks his father...