I got a nice postcard from the folks at Picador the other day, noting that their paperback edition of Jeffrey Eugenides’ Pulitzer- and NBCC-winning Middlesex has just sold its millionth copy. “In a time when writers and critics alike beoman the idea that Americans don’t read serious fiction,” they write, “we find it remarkable that this critically-acclaimed literary novel has found such a large popular audience.”
One million copies in just under two years is pretty impressive, and this almost certainly makes its the fastest selling transgender-themed novel in American history (I was going to say the most successful such book ever, but maybe Myra Breckinridge has topped it over the years), even more impressive considering that most of the sales took place during Oprah’s blackout on contemporary literature.