Grimes does not specify a precise geographical location for the fictional town of LaPorte; it may exist somewhere in New England (as her earlier novel, The End of the Pier, also set in LaPorte, suggests), or the town may mirror the western Maryland community of the author's childhood (as she has hinted in her own commentary on the novel). Similarly, the exact time frame of the action remains ambiguous, although references to the popular culture of the day indicate one pivotal summer in the early 1950's. In any event, this vagueness serves the author's intent to universalize the novel's setting, essentially making LaPorte a quintessential American small town of any time and any place. If LaPorte, for example, strikes the reader as a narrow, provincial, and mean-spirited place, Grimes may well be applying that perspective to small town life in general. Like Emma's fascination with a girl forty...