Do you know that Jeffery Eugenides 2003 Pulitzer Prize winning and Oprah Book Club pick novel Middlesex is being adapted as a one hour series for television? Apparently Rita Wilson is in the process of doing just that for HBO. That seems like a good fit. A novel about a Greek family being handled by the producer of My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Mama Mia. It's early days though so who knows when this (fingers crossed) will or won't come about.
What a fabulous book Middlesex is! The story of a girl and her gene. Calliope Stephanides and the gene that made her the man that she is today and the woman that she was yesterday. Calliope's story began in the 1960's. The gene's story began 40 years earlier when Calliope's grandparents fled the invading Turks. Together they carry the story backwards and forwards through the lives, gossip and myths of family history.
As impressed as I was by Eugenide's storytelling, it was really the warmth he brought to his characters that endeared the novel to me. Will that be something that they are able to duplicate on television? I hope so. I think it's rare to find an author who writes with real affection for his characters. Larry McMurtry does it. So does Carol Shields and Sarah Waters.
I remember thinking when I was reading Middlesex that reading it was like being in the room (but forgotten) when my Mom and her sisters would get together. I got to know everything I wasn't supposed to know and was entertained at the same time.
Happy
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