YMCA

Most of the novel takes place in the basement rec room of the YMCA in New York City. Will invites the women to join his experimental narrative therapy program, and they all come hoping that it will somehow help them overcome the traumas of their past, which have been plastered all over the media. The women spend five weeks together every Friday at the YMCA telling one another their stories until, finally, Will reveals that he is Jake Jackson in disguise, and that he has been filming them for a new reality show all along.

East Hampton Mansion

Ashton Adams buys a plot of land in East Hampton right across from the small childhood home that Bernice lives in with her family. Ashton builds his mansion so large that it blots out the ocean and becomes the only thing that Bernice and her family can see when they...