Gypsy Davey is set in an unnamed northern city—possibly Boston, the setting for many of Chris Lynch's books, though it is not named or described as such here. We do know that the urban and contemporary setting is a lower-class, transient community. This is evident from the early scene in which Davey and his older sister Joanne ride the bus and Joanne points out the various houses where their family has lived over the past several years. Later, after Joanne marries and has a baby of her own, she follows a similar pattern—getting evicted from house after house but never moving far from the neighborhood.

Description is spare in this novel. The reader is told very little about the appearance of Davey's home, and impressions are made by inference: the TV that plays all day long, the continual dinners of macaroni and cheese, the...