When the World Tips Over

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

Music becomes a symbolic link between Theo, Clive, and Wynton, ultimately serving as a way to repair their relationships and heal the sense of betrayal brought on by Bernadette’s relationship with Clive. Theo’s trumpet is described as a part of him; he’s carrying it when he first comes to Bernadette’s parents’ pastry shop, and he seems to carry it everywhere. When Theo sleepwalks, he plays the trumpet in his sleep, as though giving voice through his music to the feelings he can’t otherwise express. The importance of music to Theo is reflected in the names he gives his children: Wynton, Miles, and Dizzy are named after jazz trumpeters Wynton Marsalis, Miles Davis, and Dizzy Gillespie. Wynton’s childhood habit of needing Theo’s trumpet to fall asleep reflects his attachment to this man he regards as his father, and Theo understands this, to the extent that he leaves his trumpet tucked into bed beside Wynton the night he leaves Paradise Springs. Theo’s talent and affection for the trumpet define him, and the admiration others have for his music reflects the charisma that Theo exudes.

Wynton’s violin defines him in a similar fashion. It is his voice, the way he gives expression to the powerful emotions within him, and the way he sometimes communicates with others, as when he plays Cassidy’s sadness when he finds her in the meadow. Wynton’s violin represents his skill, his ambition, and his identity, and it also means, for him, a further tie to Theo, who gave him his first violin when Wynton was six. Wynton believes that the haunting trumpet music he hears after Theo leaves is his father, still communicating with him, and he hopes that if he follows the music, he can reunite with Theo, repair the rift, and recover from the guilt he feels for having told Theo the secret about Bernadette and Clive.

Not until the end of the book is it emphasized that Clive, too, is musical. Clive’s dream that Wynton lost his music, expressed early in the novel, is both a foreshadowing of Wynton’s accident and a clue to the later revelation that Wynton is Clive’s biological child. When Theo plays his trumpet during Wynton’s coma, Wynton can’t reconcile that sound with the music that haunts him, and he wonders if it is in fact Clive’s music he’s been following for the last 12 years. This hints at a possible reconciliation between Wynton and Clive, now that the truth is known, as much as there can be a reconciliation between Theo and Wynton. The power of music works as one of the magical realism elements of the book, standing in for the emotions of characters and offering a way to express their feelings.