Middlesex: Book 1: The Silver Spoon Summary & Analysis

Cal/lie Stephanides was born twice: once as a baby girl in 1960 in Detroit, and then again as a teenage boy in a hospital near Petoskey, Michigan, in 1974. He is featured in a study on “5-Alpha-Reductase Pseudohermaphrodites.” His birth name is Calliope Helen, and his current driver’s license, issued by the Federal Republic of Germany, lists his name as Cal. He is 41 years old, and “feel[s] another birth coming on.” He thinks about his “inbred” family. In floral language, he asks the Muse of his recessive gene to sing about how it was passed through his family for 250 years, before ending up in America. He apologizes for getting “Homeric,” saying “that’s genetic, too.” 

Just before Callie is born, her grandmother, Desdemona, asks Callie’s brother, Chapter Eleven, to bring her her silkworm box. Obeying, Chapter Eleven goes straight up to the attic where his grandparents live and retrieves the box from under the bed. He brings it back downstairs; when he hands it over, the room full of women fall silent. Desdemona gets a silver spoon out of the box and ties a piece of sting to the handle. She then hangs it over Callie’s mother Tessie’s pregnant stomach. Desdemona has correctly guessed the sexes of 23 babies. Now, Desdemona says that Tessie is going to have a boy, which secretly disappoints Tessie, who wants a girl so much that she has already chosen the name Calliope.

Desdemona’s son Milton comes in from the other room and says that her prediction is meaningless, because of “science.” Like Tessie, he wants to have a girl, to balance out the masculine energy of five-year-old Chapter Eleven. Milton sits in the room full of men, which include Peter Tatakis, who despite not being related to the Stephanides’ is treated like family and nicknamed “Uncle Pete.” He is a “lifelong bachelor” who adores high culture and works as a chiropractor. Uncle Pete advises Milton that if he wanted a girl he should to have sex with Tessie 24 hours before her ovulation, because female sperm supposedly swim slower and thus would reach the egg at the right time.

Tessie was 22 and a virgin when she married Milton. They were engaged during World War II, while Milton studied at the U.S. Naval Academy and Tessie stayed at home in Detroit. Tessie objects to Uncle Pete’s advice, believing it is “hubris” to try and control the baby’s sex. Cal comments that at the time, in 1959, the whole of America was swept up by technological optimism and the belief that a person could control their own destiny. A few days later, Milton gives Tessie a thermometer gift-wrapped in a jewelry box. He explains that it’s to test basal temperature. Annoyed, Tessie puts the thermometer back in the box and tells Milton to get her a necklace next time instead.

In three weeks’ time, Callie will be conceived. On this night, Tessie sits at her vanity table while the Acropolis night light she and Milton received as a gift lights the room. If Milton had said a single “affectionate word,” Tessie would have forgiven him, and they might have conceived a whole other person. However, instead they stiffly tell each other goodnight and go to sleep.

The next Sunday, Desdemona, Tessie, and Chapter Eleven attend church. Milton never comes and neither does Desdemona’s husband, Lefty, who stays home working on his modern Greek translations of Sappho. While Tessie sits in church, she thinks about the family doctor, Dr. Philobosian, telling her that the idea that male sperm swim faster is “nonsense,” and Desdemona chiming in to insist that it is God who decides the sex of a baby. In front of Tessie sit Callie’s cousins, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Cleopatra, while at the front Father Mike conducts the service. After the service ends, Father Mike approaches her at the coffee hour. He is the assistant priest at Assumption Greek Orthodox Church, and is married to Callie’s Aunt Zo.

Long ago, Tessie and Father Mike had been engaged, but after Tessie married Milton instead, Mike married Tessie’s sister Zoë. Tessie knows that Father Mike will have heard about the thermometer, and feels annoyed. However, she is instantly distracted by the chaos caused by Chapter Eleven losing control of the coffee urn and spilling coffee all over a little girl. While Tessie helps the girl clean up in the bathroom, the girl—whom Tessie doesn’t know and whom she will never see again after this day—says that Chapter Eleven is “obstreperous.” Tessie is impressed.

Two weeks later it is Easter Sunday for followers of the Greek Orthodox church. Chapter Eleven was crushed not to be able to celebrate Easter on the same date as his friends two weeks previously, but is happy he gets to participate in the Greek tradition of egg-cracking. However, during the middle of the egg-cracking, Tessie informs Milton that her basal temperature is up, and the two of them sneak off to have sex. This is when Callie is conceived. During Tessie’s pregnancy, Milton feels optimistic that the baby is a girl. However, Desdemona’s spoon then indicates that the baby is a boy. Milton is furious, claiming that Desdemona’s steak of correct guesses must be ending.

Callie is born on January 8th, and Milton is thrilled by the news that she is indeed a girl. That same day, Lefty has a stroke, and loses the ability to speak. Desdemona, meanwhile, is disturbed that her prediction was wrong. From then on, she never predicts a baby’s sex again.