New York City

New York City is the primary backdrop for the novel. This bustling metropolis attracts all of the characters. In New York, Katherine, Mrs. Mossler, Ruth, Gia, Lucianne, and Stephen are convinced that they can make new lives for themselves. However, living in New York is expensive and often wears on the characters. When the characters feel particularly economically disadvantaged, they feel as if they are being cut off from city life. They want the "freedom and ease" to move about New York and to enjoy the city's many social and cultural offerings (166). However, the challenges they face in finding jobs, making money, and paying rent often keep them from this. The urban setting thus incites many of the novel's primary conflicts.

The Biedermeier

The Biedermeier is another of the novel's primary settings. All of the novel's main characters reside at this women's hotel in 1960s Manhattan...