Lefty and Desdemona must flee the Turks who are invading their crumbling
city in the Ottoman Empire, and decide to head for America. What this unusual
brother and sister do not realise is that a rare genetic mutation is following
them. It secretly travels with them first to Detroit, and then to suburbia,
through prohibition and the race riots of 1967. And in the spring of 1974,
their granddaughter Calliope finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry-blonde
classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between
them leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. Through
eight decades - and one unusually awkward adolescence - Jeffrey Eugenides'
long-awaited second novel is a breathtaking vision of the American Dream
and a modern fable of crossed bloodlines, immigration, the intricacies
of gender, and deep, untidy desire.
