Evening Class (novel) a Dickensian way, they bump into each other and are affected by the decisions of those around them. It is a story of love and deceit, family drama, wealth and poverty, of friendship and courage. Nora O'Donoghue and Aidan Dunne also appear in "Quentins", another novel by Maeve Binchy, and play a more significant role in "Heart and Soul". The novel heavily inspired the plot of the Danish feature film "Italian for Beginners" (2000), which won a Silver Berlin Bear and several other major international awards. Maeve Binchy was not paid, credited nor informed of this, but was later paid
Middlesex (novel) of Texas at Arlington, wrote that the novel was "the latest in a long line of contenders for the status of Great American Novel", and compared Cal to Huckleberry Finn, the narrator of "Invisible Man", and J. Sutter in "John Henry Days". Alexander Linklater of the "Evening Standard" commented that American publishers chose "Middlesex" as the next Great American Novel to generate progress for American fiction and that Eugenides is considered the "next stepping stone along from Jonathan Franzen". Dan Cryer of "Newsday" wrote that with the publication of "Middlesex", "[f]inally, Detroit has its very own great American novel". David