The novel is set in contemporary times, in several locations within an American large city. Talley lives in an apartment in The Neighborhood, an area with numerous closed factories and stores. Although druggies and prostitutes hang out on the street corners, it is not the worst, most dangerous area. Many of its residents are poor and unemployed, but proud that they have been able to maintain their homes. Roady's dirty, run-down, cold apartment building is in the high-crime east side. This ghetto area is mostly inhabited by the elderly, who cannot move out, and gangs who prey upon them. The story's characters attend Colonel Glenn High School located in The Neighborhood. Formerly an allblack school with a capacity of three thousand students, Colonel Glenn School was recently designated a magnet school; and for the first time, whites from the suburbs attend the inner city school.