Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses the source text’s depictions of murder, rape, and antigay bias and language. It also includes scientifically inaccurate and offensive depictions of people with brain injuries and people with mental health conditions.

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life.”

The novel’s epigraph sets up Pete’s journey. As he goes enters the “abyss” of his obsession with the Rothstein notebooks he discovers the real “treasure” of his family. Ultimately, he realizes, his sister and the people around him mean more than literature.

“I have never asked myself. Any more than I’ve asked myself why I keep filling notebook after notebook. Some things just are.”

Rothstein here illustrates the mindset of the author in The Relationship Between Author and Readers. He does not understand why he writes; he just does it, without thought to pleasing a specific reader or group, despite how passionately Morris may feel about it.

“The first argument about money in the Saubers household—the first one the kids overheard, at least—happened on an evening in April. It wasn’t a big argument, but even the greatest storms begin as a gentle breeze.”

This metaphor compares the argument between Pete’s parents to a gentle breeze that will grow into a storm. Pete’s reflection suggests that the fighting has escalated in severity and may end in a natural disaster-sized catastrophe. This fighting ultimately inspires him to give them the money, then look for a way to sell the notebooks, in an effort to help them. Ironically, this small act creates the “storm” of the events of the novel.