New York City

New York City is the site of nearly all events recounted in Once More We Saw Stars, the principal setting of the book. Even more significantly, it was the lax regulation practiced by city officials that doomed Greta to her early death. Jayson and Stacy’s relationship with NYC is so tumultuous and fraught it is almost as if the city were itself a character in the narrative; Greene writes about it as a place that bends people to its will, as if it had agency and intention. In a flashback to when Greta was still alive, Greene recounts moving Greta from Brooklyn to spend a day with Susan and Manhattan, and ends this memory by noting “The city we move through is still a welcoming one,” before its malevolence is revealed (45). Jayson and Stacy do consider moving away from the city entirely at one...