When the world tips over, p.46
When the World Tips Over, page 46
You are so infinitesimally close to returning to your family, to the crappy amazing world, to all the glorious noise, but you can’t make your eyes open, as much as you try, until you’re overwhelmed by the scent of flowers – Cassidy!
You hear her cry out, “Wynton and I are not related!”
And then what is this?
What is it?
A hand – her hand! – tenderly grazes your forehead, your cheek, then lands on your fingers, and you know this because you can feel it which means you are back. You are back! If you open your eyes, you will see Cassidy – that waterfall of beauty – and you will see your brother who forgives you and your mother and little sister who love you completely, effortlessly. You will see your father Theo who left and your father Clive who didn’t – someone whose horn-playing you very well may have been hearing all these years, for it’s just occurred to you, it was him and not the other man who gave you the greatest gift of your life: the ability to make music.
You’ve now watched the world walk away from you without a thought, until these people, your people, dragged it back. For you. Is that the actual divine frequency then?
You know right on the other side of your eyelids are tremendous days that will ring out clear as bells and nights that will escort you through songs with only sad parts. You are here for every last bit of it, every last note.
Except not yet.
Cassidy’s holding your hand and you know she’s leaning over you because tumbles of hair are tickling your face and neck. You summon all your strength, all your life, and squeeze her hand to tell her yes and yes and still more yes, then with eyes still shut, you whisper only for her to hear, “Closer,” and she understands, because your lips have found each other’s – your mouths! – and kissing her is Beethoven’s freaking Fifth and you never want to stop, never want to, never will stop loving this girl. This girl who has planted a sun in your chest. This girl who has brought you back to life, word by word, with the full orchestra of her being, her story, and now with this kiss that is turning you into brightness, into music, into yourself.
You realize you can lift your right arm even though it’s heavy and likely in a cast and when you do to gently place it on Cassidy’s back to bring her still closer, to pull her in in in, the room explodes with cries, and the world that you’re all in together tips over, and for once, it’s joy, and only joy that spills out.
The First Meal Theo Fall Eats at The Blue Spoonful:
Amuse-Bouche: Oysters with Sea Urchin, Lemon Pearls, and Black Pepper
Starter: A Tower of Scallops, Cucumbers, Nectarines, topped with a Cardamom and Horseradish Sauce
Main: Tender Roast Chicken smothered in Elderberry Juice, Olives, and Capers
Dessert #1: Annie’s Chocolate VINEGAR Cake
Dessert #2: Dizzy’s Pansy Petal Crêpes with Lavender Cream
Pairing: A Pinot Noir from a local winery called Second Chance
Acknowledgements
Years ago, an author friend said to me that writing a novel is like trying to fit a quilt the size of a football field into a tiny envelope. With When the World Tips Over, it often felt like that quilt was the size of a continent. I never would have finished without the insightful, passionate, and enthusiastic help I received from so many. I want to thank the readers at Pippin Properties, Inc.: Holly McGhee, Marissa Brown, Julia Ermi, Jason Ajas Steiner, Morgan Hughes, who read and reread, who moved into the work with me, whose insights were genius, spot-on, and always honest, no matter the timing. I also want to thank all the Pippins—adding in Elena Giovinazzo, Ashley Valentine, and the awesome interns—for everything else on earth they do with such expertise, enthusiasm, ferocity, competence, joy. Especially my funny, fierce, indomitable literary agent and dear friend, Holly McGhee, with her heart-and-soul devotion to art and life. She is her own horizon.
I’m overflowing with gratitude for my spectacular editor Jessica Dandino Garrison, my trench-mate, whom I adore and trust wholeheartedly. She lived in this story with me, bringing to the editing process brilliance, enthusiasm, openness, stamina, kindness, and a delight for words and story that is regenerative and inspiring. I want to thank everyone else at Penguin Young Readers too, for support and patience during the writing years as well as mad passion and attack when the novel was finally delivered. You are an extraordinary team, and I am thrilled and honored to be a part of it. You always make me feel like I’m home. So much gratitude goes to absolutely everyone there, including: Jen Loja, Jen Klonsky, Nancy Mercado, Felicity Vallence, Lizzie Goodell, Emily Romero, Jocelyn Schmidt, Christina Colangelo, Carmela Iaria, Venessa Carson, Shanta Newlin, Lauri Hornik, Lindsay Boggs, Squish Pruitt, Lathea Mondesir, Alex Garber, James Akinaka, Jayne Ziemba, Regina Castillo, Kenny Young, Jenn Ridgway, Tabitha Dulla, Shannon Spann, Jenny Kelly, who put her heart into designing these stunning pages, and Theresa Evangelista, who designed this cover I love so much, I want to eat it. Thanks also go to Jessica Cruickshank for her gorgeous artwork, which brings so much to the story.
So much gratitude goes to the incredible team at Rights People in the UK for bringing my stories to so many readers worldwide. You are peerless and I am so lucky to work with you. Thank you: Alex Devlin, Harim Yim, Claudia Galluzzi, Amy Threadgold, Charlotte Bodman, Hannah Whitaker, Annie Blombach. Thanks also go to the entire fantastic crew at Walker Books in the UK and Australia/New Zealand for their support, enthusiasm, and ingenuity. Particularly my wonderful UK editors: Jane Winterbotham, Frances Taffinder, and my former editor Annalie Grainger. Thanks also to my German editor Birte Hecker, who’s become a friend, as well as all my editors, translators, and publishers across the globe. I can’t tell you how much it means to me that my characters get to live in your languages. Much appreciation also goes to my audio book publishers at Brilliance and Listening Library as well as the gifted actors who narrate them.
I want to thank the fabulous team of Diane Golden and Sarah Lerner for their savvy, expertise, and friendship, and my wonderful film agent Dana Spector at CAA for the same.
For their astute early reads when this novel was still a continent-size quilt, I thank Tim Wynne-Jones, Brent Hartinger, and later: Patricia Nelson, Carol Nelson, Marianna Baer, Nina LaCour, and my amazing mother, Edie Block.
Thanks especially to my friend, the incredible author and editor Marianna Baer, who talked about this story with me for years, offering brilliance and belly laughs. I couldn’t bear writing and publishing without you.
Thanks to doctors Anne and Maggie for help with my coma patient, and to Dr. Bautista for help with eye conditions.
Enormous heartfelt appreciation to all the booksellers, librarians, and educators across the country who are so dedicated in these years of terrible book bannings to getting the right books into the hands of young people. You are heroes.
This was not an easy novel to write, and it was also a difficult bunch of years to write in for many reasons. I want to thank my family for all the love, support, and revelry, for the martini dinners, for making life a celebration, no matter what else is going on. Thank you to my huge-hearted and hilarious mother, whom I cherish beyond words and who is the heart outside my body. My father died while I was writing this book and he is forever in me and my words, and I’m pretty sure, the bouquet of dried yellow roses that I seem to talk to when I miss him most. So much love goes to my stepmother, Carol, who is a blazing meteor lighting up the sky, to the best brothers and pals on earth, my ballasts: Bruce and Bobby, whom I love immeasurably, who always make me laugh, and for whom I’m grateful every day—how are we so fortunate that we get to go through it all together? To Pat and Monica, my beloved, kickass sisters in this life, to my joyful dynamo of a niece Lena, to my sweet and compassionate nephew Jake, the bravest person I know, to clever Adam with his kind heart whom I miss. Great appreciation to Rick and Patricia, to Andy, Sarah, Alyssa, and Lindsay, to Jeff and Deborah and always and forever Michele. Huge love to Paul, who somehow is both always in the moment and sublimely in the clouds, for incomparable joie de vivre, conversation, celebration. To Mark for bringing the joy, the tender heart to days past and to come. Also, love to the extended families: the Greens, the Blocks, the Shumans, the Routhiers, the Feuerwerkers.
I think the luckiest part of my life is that I have a second family of decades-old friends, who plant the sun in my chest, whom I couldn’t live without, who fill my life with life, joy, hope, hilarity, safety, continuity. I think maybe we’re all trees at this point whose roots have joined under the earth. All my love forever to Anne, Ami, Becky, Emily, Jeremy, Julie, Larry, James, Maggie, Mo, Simone, Sarah, Alex, Zoe, Tim, Jeff, Dave, Matt, and the kids: Ila, Jo, Lucas, Sora, Siena, Sam, Jules, Prudence.
And for eternity: Barbie, Stacy, and James.
I also want to thank my cherished house family: Nina, Kristyn, Juju, Luka, and Mazie. I am so happy to live in The Magic Circle with you, to share the days, the flowers, the dinners, the whist games, the cocktails, the howlings into the wind, even the busted pipes. You are all in my heart forever.
So much gratitude to so many friends and faculty at VCFA for changing the course of my life. Same goes to my English teachers and literature professors over the years. And to all my writer friends.
Deep thanks to MacDowell for a fellowship where I spent a magical, timeless six weeks walking the woods in moonlight, finishing this novel. I had such an enchanted time with everyone I met there, wish I could name all the names but there’s too many of you amazing people, so just a special shout-out to Ingrid and Victor.
For everyone I’ve mentioned and so many I haven’t because of space, I’m so grateful that we get to spend this life together, that when the world tips over, because of you, for me, joy always spills out.
It’s ridiculous how much I love you all.
JANDY NELSON is the New York Times bestselling author of I’ll Give You the Sun, which received the Printz Award, was a Stonewall Honor Book, and was named one of TIME’s 100 Best Young Adult Books of all Time. Her critically acclaimed debut, The Sky Is Everywhere, is now an AppleTV+ and A24 original film starring Jason Segel and Cherry Jones, for which Jandy wrote the screenplay. Together, Sun and Sky have sold well over a million copies worldwide and have been translated into more than thirty-eight languages. Both have been YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults picks and on multiple best of the year lists, have earned many starred reviews, and continue to enjoy great international success. Currently a full-time writer, Jandy lives and writes in San Francisco, California, not far from the settings of her novels.
Visit Jandy at jandynelson.com, on Instagram @jandy.nelson, on Twitter @jandynelson, and on Facebook at Jandy Nelson.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any other kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated as they may result in injury.
First published in the UK 2024 by Walker Books Ltd
87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ
Text © 2024 Jandy Nelson
Cover art © 2024 Rustic / Shutterstock
Cover design by Theresa Evangelista
Interior illustrations © 2024 Jessica Cruickshank
Epigraphs quoted from Oscar Wilde’s Vera; or, The Nihilists, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Paul Éluard’s Ouevres complètes, vol. 1, Kabir’s Ecstatic Poems, translated by Robert Bly, and used here with thanks.
The right of Jandy Nelson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-4063-7542-8 (epub)
www.walker.co.uk
Jandy Nelson, When the World Tips Over
