One Came Home Mortality Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #10

It's too true that some survivors never got a chance to think of rebuilding their lives. These people breathed their last in temporary beds. We dug them graves at Mount Zion Cemetery, put their names (if they'd been able to tell them) on markers, and paid them the respects we were able.

Every once in a while, I rode Long Ears up to the cemetery and laid flowers on those graves. I tried to remember each person's particulars (a walk, a smile, the way they clung to a photograph). I spoke the names I knew.

"You are not in nowhere," I told the dead. (24.61-63)

Georgie seems to be greatly affected by the experience of hosting both the living and the dead victims of the lake fires, but the fires aren't really related to the rest of the story. So what function do the fires serve in the novel?