Los Angeles

Los Angeles is one of the novel's primary backdrops. This is the city in California where the narrator lives with her husband Harris and child Sam. Although her life is relatively stable in L.A., the narrator feels claustrophobic. She spends the majority of time at home, closed in her garage studio. When she is not working on her artwork, she is attending to Sam, fulfilling her domestic duties, or lying in bed alone fantasizing. Therefore, the narrator is thrilled when she receives $20,000 for a single sentence she wrote because the money will fund her trip to New York. She is eager to get out of L.A. because she thinks doing so will grant her a new perspective on her life and herself.

Although the narrator does temporarily leave her home, she only drives 30 minutes outside of the city before stopping. When she returns to L...