Amherst, 1866

The majority of the novel takes place in Amherst, a bustling city in the state of Massachusetts in the year of 1866. The town was a bustling center with factories, meadows, people and horses filling the streets, and is in contrast to the expansive green countryside of Ireland where Ada grew up. Massachusetts as a whole was the destination of a fair number of Irish immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century, and a small community has settled in Amherst itself, and this novel uses the example of Ada to explore the experience of these migrants.

The Homestead

The Dickinson family lives in a big yellow house on Main Street known as the Homestead. The house has frequent visitors, and the majority of the novel takes place within this houses. It is here that we are witness to nineteenth-century domestic arts and feminine domesticity, as we watch Ada, Emily, her sister...