“I’m the final clause in a periodic sentence, and that sentence began a long time ago, in another language, and you have to read from the beginning to get to the end, which is my arrival.” Narrated by an intersexed adult male, born a girl, and descended from incestuous, Greek-immigrant grandparents, Middlesex is essentially a story about a genetic mutation.

Obviously, Middlesex deals with gender. However, that’s just one theme you’ll come across in Middlesex. You’ll also find debates (actual debates, both sides are presented) on nature v. nurture, fate and chance, forgetting and remembering. You’ll read about rebirth, division/segregation, the rise and fall of the city of Detroit, and life and death.

And, so, yes, Middlesex is an Oprah™’s Book Club selection. And, maybe that’ll turn you off. But here’s the thing about Oprah™’s book club: the books are good; her interview questions aren’t. But I digress…

Cormac Mccarthy has said real literature “deals with issues of life and death.” And while, Middlesex is rich in themes, I was struck most by the way Eugenides’ allows the reader to look at life (and everything that shapes it) and death.

In many ways, our lives are determined by the people who came before us. As Cal tells us, “Parents are supposed to pass down physical traits to their children, but it’s my belief that all sorts of other things get passed down, too: motifs, scenarios, even fates.” Middlesex allows us to examine how much of our life is determined by nature, how much is nurture, fate or chance. Being born with male and female genitalia due to a genetic mutation seems like a strong argument for nature and fate. But what if that mutation is passed down to you because your grandparents are brother and sister and chose to get married and have children? That’s a choice and that’s chance. Eugenides allows room for both chance and fate to operate in our lives. Chance: “And so a strange new possibility is arising. Compromised, indefinite, sketchy, but not entirely obliterated: free will is making a comeback. Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.” Fate: “But in the end it wasn’t up to me. The big things never are. Birth, I mean, and death. And what love bequeaths to us before we’re born.”

So, then, how do you choose to deal with life and death? We can’t control what we’re given at birth. And, yes, we’re all going to die. Death is one unquestionable area in which fate operates in our life. “What really mattered in life, what gave it weight, was death.” What do you do with that weight? That sometimes unbearable, crushing weight: your own mortality. You despair, of course. Why not? “Everyone struggles against despair, but it always wins in the end. It has to. It’s the thing that lets us say goodbye.”

Life and death. And gender. And rebirth. And fate and chance. And beautiful prose. There are a lot of reasons to read Middlesex, but if I were you, I’d do it because Oprah™ told me to.