Cal’s father Milton sacrifices his Greek heritage almost entirely in order to reach higher echelons of privilege through business success. In this way, he becomes a cautionary tale of forgetting one’s roots in pursuit of mainstream acceptance. Milton’s focus on obtaining money and success by American standards crystallizes when he moves the family to Grosse Pointe, a wealthy neighborhood prestigious in part because of its attempt to keep immigrant families out. Though Grosse Pointe realtors effectively stonewall Milton’s house hunt by showing him only undesirable homes on the edge of the neighborhood, he is so devoted to achieving his view of success that he pays cash for an unusual property without consulting his wife or family. Milton sides with the US in its support of Turkey in the Turkish war with Greece, and in doing so, he alienates life-long friends. But for Milton, siding with Greece would mean speaking ill of the United States, which he is loath to do, as he identifies as American first and foremost. By the end of the novel, Milton’s primary expression of his Greekness comes in a commodified fashion, through material objects like his cufflinks and the branding of Hercules Hot Dogs. This commodification plays into American capitalism, rendering it non-threatening to the mainstream. Although Milton initially goes after Callie’s “kidnapper” out of fatherly love, the car chase that ultimately kills him is solely in reckless pursuit of retrieving the ransom money, symbolizing the destructiveness of single-mindedly pursuing capitalist wealth.

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