'People would think I was a hermaphrodite'

'I never asked myself whether a 500-page novel about a Greek family told by a hermaphrodite would be the kind of thing people would read. When I was writing Middlesex, my wife told me that people would think I was a hermaphrodite. I told her she was crazy, but in fact I get letters now from people thanking me for the book and for telling my story.'

Jeffrey Eugenides, author of Middlesex, which has just been chosen by the Oprah Book Club, in the Observer