Middlesex Book 3, Chapter 4 Summary

How It All Goes Down

The Mediterranean Diet

  • Cal breaks it off with Julie Kikuchi in the present before returning to Desdemona's story in the past.
  • With Desdemona bed-ridden with grief, Calliope brings her trays of food.
  • Desdemona somehow gets enrolled in a longevity study. They smudge the facts a bit, leading the doctor to believe that Desdemona's Greek diet has her looking great at ninety-one. (She's really twenty years younger.)
  • Someone is prospering for real though: Milton is expanding his restaurant business into a franchise of hot dog stands called Hercules Hot Dogs.
  • Also, Calliope's brother, Chapter Eleven, has started pleasuring himself and really enjoying it.
  • At school, Calliope feels awkward because she's the only girl who has yet to blossom.
  • Things are going to change, though. As part of desegregation, they're going to start busing white kids to black schools.