New York City

The entire novel takes place in New York City, and Lucy frequently comments on the sights and sounds around her, even using the city's constant state of flux as a metaphor for her own coming-of-age. Early on in the novel, she calls being chased by a police officer after the graffiti incident "a modern teenager's test of will" wondering if perhaps the young Lenape Native Americans from another era of Manhattan's history "may have run our exact route to escape some flesh-eating predator" (16). Lucy's commentary about the city also offers into her mood, as when she is feeling depressed after her dissatisfying sexual encounter with Percy, she declares, "New York is a pussing flesh wound on the neck. It's ravenous and insatiable. New York will leave you for dead" (154). But at the end of the novel, she catalogs every changing business and building in her neighborhood...