FPL's Monday evening book club, Book Talk @ Night, did this book in July 2008. The novel's intersex narrator began life as a girl only to discover in his teens the trick played upon him by genetics. And while the tale of young Calliope's (later just "Cal") internal struggle with gender identity is a compelling one, the real triumph of this novel is Eugenides's ability to spin an epic yarn that reaches back generations into the protagonist's ancestry.

At times the scope of the narration is nearly overwhelming and you may wonder why Cal chooses to reveal as much as he does, but on the whole, the novel is funny, endearing, tragic, surprising, and very much worth reading from start to finish.