On January 8, 1960, Calliope Stephanides is born in Detroit to a Greek-American family, delivered on a snowy night that her grandmother Desdemona reads as a sign. The narrator, Cal, later reveals he was born intersex, and this January birthday is the starting point of a memoir that reaches back to 1922 Smyrna — tracing the genetic secret that traveled across two continents and three generations to manifest in him.