Note on Setting in The Ensemble

Time and location are both extremely important in the novel, as the geography and mood of a place influence the characters’ lives and relationships to each other. While the novel largely moves chronologically, characters continually draw on memories—and occasionally flash-forward, through the narrator—to demonstrate the connections between people and places across time. The novel covers a period of eighteen years, from the 1992 scene in the Coda through to the 2010 scene at the end of Part Four. That period is also the lifespan of the quartet while it is composed of Jana, Henry, Brit, and Daniel. In its effort to encapsulate and long and rich period in four characters’ lives, the novel reflects continuously on time and place and the way the characters experience it differently over the course of their lives.

San Francisco: 1992–1994 and 2003–2010

San Francisco is the both the birthplace...