Texas Panhandle

The bulk of the novel takes place in the Texas panhandle near the city of Amarillo, and this setting is crucial to the novel's exploration of cultural difference, American consumerism, and adaptation. Hằng, who routinely struggles to enjoy indulgence following the trauma of her passage to America, finds herself alarmed by how enormous and gratuitous much of Texas culture tends to be. She is further underwhelmed by the cult of masculinity that her companion, LeeRoy, wants so desperately to fit into, a cult that plays itself out not only in honor by way of working-class labor but also through stoicism and reserve. Hằng's own trauma seems to disillusion her to the machismo of Texas culture, in no small part because the male mythos that LeeRoy waxes poetic about throughout the novel is one that she has experienced and endured firsthand; in other words, she is...