Belfast

Belfast is the city in Ireland where the entirety of the novel is set. After completing his degree in English literature, Sean moves from Liverpool back to Belfast. Belfast is the city in which he grew up, and is thus familiar to Sean. However, this familiarity quickly becomes entrapping for him. "Nothing had changed," Sean notes while wandering around town one day, "but everything felt different" (40). This quotation from Chapter 4 encapsulates Sean's increasingly fraught relationship with Belfast. Although the city feels fixed and comfortable, Sean himself has grown beyond it. He therefore lives in constant conflict with the place, perpetually trying to fit back into the environment while simultaneously attempting to create a life and identity independent of it.

Bookfinders Bookshop & Café

Bookfinders Bookshop & Café is a local establishment that Mairéad and her friends from university frequent. Some time after Mairéad relocates to Berlin, Sean...