"The Way It Felt to Be Falling" starts out with Kate, the narrator, describing the summer she turned nineteen. In the midst of a recession, her father's consulting business has failed, an event that causes him to retreat into madness. Kate and her mother visit him in the hospital, but he does not notice them. Kate's mother works as a secretary during the day and decorates cakes as a side job, in order to support the family. Kate recalls one day where the bottom layer of a finished wedding cake collapsed, and her mother, normally a calm person, broke down crying. Kate talks about her boyfriend that summer, Stephen, the unstable older brother of her friend, Emmy—who has left town with a number of others to follow the Grateful Dead on tour. Kate wanted to go, but is working in a convenience store to...