"Night's my hometown, the place I'm comfortable," states Rob. Although the reader knows exactly where he lives, it seems fitting that the protagonist of this novel defines himself more by the hours in which he thrives than by his geographic location. The book's unusual structure does not allow for extremely detailed physical descriptions of Rob's home and community; instead, it explores his emotional landscape and the nightly sojourns he makes— via the radio dial and his own imagination— to remote locations around the globe as he searches for his father's voice on the airwaves.

The physical setting of the story is briefly and concretely described: Rob and his mother live with Rob's grandparents in a Victorian duplex on San Francisco's Potrero Hill. The family has installed a connecting door between the two units of the duplex, which signifies the close relationship between the older and younger...