Charlottesville, Virginia, 2017

This is the city in which most of the novel is set, where Suzanne and Whit live and raise their children. It is the first city that Iris s exposed to when she is taken in by them. She is surprised by the big houses and the manicured lawns. Initially she feels more comfortable sleeping outside on Suzanne’s lawn or in their hammock in the backyard. After being told by her parents about overpopulation, Iris is surprised at the lack of people she sees in the streets.

The cabin

The cabin is where Iris spent most of her childhood. First, her father and Ash leave and then her mother dies, meaning that she lived there alone for some time. She abandons the cabin when strangers find it and stay there. When she revisits it with Suzanne, it is a place filled with “sadness and regret” (303). When...