When The Wind Turns

When the Wind Turns
Fire, Loss, and What Remains

By Julian Alexander

Disaster doesn't arrive as chaos.
It arrives as normal-until it isn't.

When wildfire tears through Malibu in January 2025, Julian Alexander watches the illusion of permanence collapse in real time. What begins as an ordinary week along California's iconic coastline quickly becomes a firsthand account of evacuation, destruction, displacement, and survival.

But When the Wind Turns is more than a memoir about fire.

Blending personal narrative with historical insight and societal commentary, Alexander explores the deeper forces disasters expose: fragile systems, modern complacency, climate risk, wealth, identity, and the human need for control in a world that refuses to be controlled.

Set against the dramatic history of Malibu-from the Chumash people's relationship with fire to modern luxury development-the book examines how generations have attempted to tame a landscape that has always demanded humility.

Through vivid storytelling and reflective prose, When the Wind Turns captures:

• the terrifying speed of wildfire
• the emotional reality of losing a home
• the failures and limitations of institutions
• the hidden costs of displacement
• the psychology of rebuilding after catastrophe
• what resilience truly means when stability disappears

Part memoir, part cultural reflection, When the Wind Turns is a powerful meditation on survival, impermanence, and what remains after everything familiar is gone.

For readers of:

• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
• Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
• Nomadland
• The Uninhabitable Earth