The Corona House

34 Bisgrove Street: The deceased father of Kathy and her brother Frank (both of whom lived in Boston) left them a house in Corona, California. Kathy is living in it as the novel begins but is soon mistakenly evicted. The house is purchased at public auction by an immigrant Iranian, who gets the house at about a quarter of its market value (after the auction, he uses a $10,000 check drawn on the Bank of America as down payment and then pays the other $35,000 in cash). The Tax Office had advertised the house as having a "widow's walk" (a term from the 18th century eastern U.S. coast for a flat roof with a railing, where widows were said to look to sea for their whaling husbands who never returned). Nadereh calls this widow's walk the "roof porch" and Kathy calls it a "deck."

Automobiles

A lot...