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Middlesex Book 2, Chapter 6 Summary

How It All Goes Down

News of the World

  • Back to Cal for a moment. We have another song. It's no Alicia Keyes, but it's apropos. Cal and Julie sitting in the studio… K-I-S-S-I-N-G. They share their first kiss in her art studio.
  • And now back to World War II.
  • Tessie, on the home front, watches the newsreels every day, searching for Milton and hoping he is safe.
  • Michael Antoniou is studying at Holy Cross. He writes Tessie twice a week, and she writes him back. She only writes him lies, though.
  • At war, Milton gets a veritable death sentence. He's assigned the position of signalman. "Thirty-eight seconds was the life expectancy of a signalman" (2.6.60). He's basically going to be one of the guys in Saving Private Ryan who gets blown up in the first ten minutes.
  • At the last second, Milton is granted reprieve. Can you say deus ex machina?
  • Milton passes an admissions test to the Naval Academy at Annapolis and is transferred at the last minute. He returns home.
  • Desdemona gives thanks to St. Christopher, and says that Milton must return to Greece and fix the church there.
  • Tessie ditches Mike and marries Milton instead. Mike ends up shifting his focus to the next available pair of XY chromosomes in the room: Milton's sister, Zoë.