A Depression-era small town in southern Illinois serves as the backdrop for A Long Way from Chicago. The effects of the Depression are clearly evidenced in the frugal ways of the townspeople and in Peck's depiction of a line at the store waiting for the day-old bread to go on sale at half price.
At one point the town refuses to allow men looking for work to linger in town. Chicagobred Joey and Mary Alice make the train trip to this small town each summer in August for a week's visit with Grandma Dowdel. Joey and Mary Alice leave modern conveniences behind when they go to Grandma's. Her house is the last at the edge of town, just across the line into the county, with the Wabash Railroads' tracks running at the back of her.....
