When the World Tips Over

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes references to mental illness, substance use and addiction, death, violence and child abuse.

“She didn’t know people could stop loving you. She’d thought friendship was permanent, like matter.”

The hurt Dizzy feels over her rift with her best friend Lizard is the first of many abandonments incorporated into the novel. The question of whether love can die is analyzed from several angles, through several characters, while Dizzy’s reunion with Lizard at the end is one of many moments of reconciliation confirming the message that hurt can still lead to joy.

“Often she felt like the real Miles was the boy weeping in darkness, giving off some kind of strange dream light, not this perfect one who was more like a boarder than a brother.”

The Fall siblings begin the book with Miles the odd man out, another version of the estrangement that prevails among the Fall brothers. The light that shows from Miles, a sign of his heritage as a descendent of Alonso Fall, also indicates the joyful person inside him who is waiting to be awakened by Cassidy and then Felix, illustrating the transformative effect that one person can have on another.

“The air was blazing and breathless even this early because of The Devil Winds. The whole valley felt like it was one spark away from bursting into flames.”

The name The Devil Winds—derived from the Diablo winds that occur in late summer and fall in California’s Bay Area—hints at the magical and personified properties that will later be associated with the town of Paradise Springs. In the first part, the heat wave and dryness add to the tension of the atmosphere, setting up the expectation of disaster. The environment will continue to react to and respond to the characters, evoking the sense that they live in an enchanted or mythical land.