South Boston

The majority of the novel takes place in the neighborhood of South Boston during the 1974 anti-busing protests, which were conducted by white residents of the neighborhood in an effort to prevent the desegregation of Boston schools. The setting is significant because of this racial unrest, which informs much of the novel's plot, but also because the attitudes in and around the neighborhood grow out of the culture passed down there from generation to generation. It is a punishing, violent, and unforgiving space, one in which parents are abusive to their children, drinking runs rampant, and everyone appears perpetually ready to get into a fight. But it also sustains itself on the idea that there is a fierce loyalty which undergirds the roughness, an idea that Lehane seeks to strike against in his portrayal of the corruption and cruelty of the neighborhood occurring behind the scenes.

Mattapan

Mattapan...