Middlesex

… But before my grandfather can come up with an answer, another memory comes careening across the ice. It is a Sunday night during my childhood and my father is taking me to the movies at the Detroit Yacht Club. We ascend the red-carpeted stairs, passing silver sailing trophies and the oil portrait of the hydroplane racer Gar Wood. On the second floor, we enter the auditorium. Wooden folding chairs are set up before a movie screen. And now the lights have been switched off and the clanking projector shoots out a beam of light, showing a million dust motes in the air.

The only way my father could think of to instill in me a sense of my heritage was to take me to dubbed Italian versions of the ancient Greek myths. And so, every week, we saw Hercules slaying the Nemean lion, or stealing the girdle of the Amazons (“That’s some girdle, eh, Callie?”), or being thrown gratuitously into snake pits without textual support. But our favorite was the Minotaur …

… On the screen an actor in a bad wig appears. “That’s Theseus,” Milton explains. “He’s got this ball of string his girlfriend gave him, see. And he’s using it to find his way back out of the maze.”

Now Theseus enters the Labyrinth. His torch lights up stone walls made of cardboard. Bones and skulls litter his path. Bloodstains darken the fake rock. Without taking my eyes from the screen, I hold out my hand. My father reaches into the pocket of his blazer to find a butterscotch candy. As he gives it to me, he whispers, “Here comes the Minotaur!” And I shiver with fear and delight.

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