Being with Henry is located in the Minnesota cities of Minneapolis, Duluth, and Bemidji. Brooks uses the U.S. setting, which was the initial setting for Laker's home in "The Kindness of Strangers" because she saw something there that had impressed her. She reported seeing a telephone booth in Bemidji with a sign over it urging people to call home. Street kids were all around, apparently homeless or quite detached from their homes. This scene left a permanent impression on her.

Readers first meet Laker and his mother, Audrey, in a Minneapolis Safeway parking lot. Audrey accidentally encounters trucker Rick, Laker's future stepfather. Following the marriage of Audrey and Rick, Duluth becomes the threesome's new home, and the place in which Laker, now economically dependent upon Rick, becomes increasingly angry over what he perceives as Rick's escalating emotional abuse of Audrey.

When Laker's anger manifests itself as a...