New York City

Nearly the entire novel is set in New York City, the most populous city in the United States. All of the novel’s central characters live in New York City. New York City is also the epicenter of the 9/11 tragedy, as terrorists flew two planes into the World trade Center towers, destroying the buildings and killing over 2,500 people. The novel’s events are all directly related to these events and the Islamophobia that gripped the American public in the years following.

Early 2000s

The novel is set in the early 2000s and begins about two years after the 9/11 attacks. The public horror and outrage over 9/11 are still quite prominent in America at this time. This outrage causes much of the American public to engage in xenophobic, oppressive mistreatment of Muslim Americans, as perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks were Muslim. The novel seeks to expose the inherently immoral...