“The story—that Sarah was driving, with Misty riding shotgun and Theo in the backseat—will not be questioned. Not this night, not ever. It will become the deepest kind of family secret, one so dangerous that it will never be spoken.”

Signal Fires begins with an event that has repercussions for years to come—Misty’s death in a car accident. Sarah’s lie protects Theo in the moment; Theo will struggle with his culpability for the rest of his life. By beginning the novel with such a traumatic event, Dani Shapiro foreshadows that the Wilfs’ family secret will repress Sarah and Theo for a long time, the primary tension of the Wilfs’ drama.

“It is encircled—depending on the season—by dozens of varieties of wildflowers, tall, fragrant grasses. Every other bit of greenery in the neighborhood is regularly manicured and trimmed by landscapers, but the oak presides over its own small patch of jungle, a primeval piece of real estate.”

The oak tree where Sarah and Theo’s car accident took place is now referred to as the magic tree by children in the neighborhood, who don’t know the history of the tree. The tree, with its wildflowers, juxtaposes the rest of the well-manicured neighborhood. Unbeknownst to new neighbors, this juxtaposition is due to Ben and Mimi’s reluctance to approach the tree.

“Ten going on eleven. A boy on the verge of enormous change. A boy (here he thinks of Theo with a pang) who is about to wade into a sea of unknowability from which it will take him years to return.”

Ben sees his son Theo in Waldo, because he himself has learned how quickly childhood can be lost to the pains of adulthood. He sees Waldo as innocent, but on the verge of unknowability. Overall, the novel explores lost childhoods and the complexities of adulthood. The novel’s adults have learned many of life’s lessons, and picture future tension when considering children like Waldo.