New Orleans

The 2017 timeline of the novel takes place in New Orleans, where Ava has recently moved from her neighborhood of Central City to her grandmother Martha's (unnamed) posh neighborhood. Ava explains that Central City struggled to bounce back after the wreckage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina, but that it is on the upswing: "you see it in the empty lots and boarded-up windows, but new restaurants and shops are popping up" (67). She continues, "and of course there are the neighborhood's anchors: Ashé Cultural Arts Center where King and I would go for open mics and drum workshops...older women sitting on the porches of bright shotguns snapping green beans, the young men kneeling over their front lawns, resuscitating old cars" (67). Nevertheless, there were also drug dealers on the corners and when Ava returns briefly to visit, a friend tells her that two boys around King's age had been shot...