Location Location Location

When you’re reading fiction, how important is the setting? Does the town or city where the story happens become one of the characters, or is it just background for the story?

A sense of place is very important to me as a reader.  If I know the area, I enjoy seeing someone else’s take on it.  Harlan Coben writes about Essex County, New Jersey, an area I know well.  When I read his books, I can picture exactly where his characters live and work.  His mention of streets and specific locations add color and depth to the story for me. It’s the same with works by Philip Roth, a totally different kind of a writer, but also from Essex County who made me see the Newark he experienced as a boy. That Goodbye Columbus is based on a section of South Orange near where we lived makes me want to read the book again.

A Year in Provence inspired me, and thousands of others, to spend a vacation there. Children’s books by E.B. White are part of the reason my husband and I spent a lot of time on the coast of Maine. When I read Michelle Obama’s memoir I got a real sense of Chicago’s south side. We’ve a family wedding in Chicago next May and while we’re there, I’m planning on a trip to both the south side and Lincoln Park.  Knowing a bit about the area, I want to know more.

Locations are important as a writer. Not only do they add another layer to the story, they also ground it.  My first four published novels take place in New Jersey where I was living when I was writing them.  Three of the books are set in Maplewood, the suburban town where my husband and I raised our children.  Suddenly Lily takes place in Jersey City where I worked.  Although it's easier to write about a town or city that I know, because they are real places, I had to  be accurate.  Sometimes, in order to make sure, I would go back to Maplewood to check out street locations or the addresses of stores or restaurants.  If a writer gets it wrong, the contract between the reader and the author is broken and the reader stops believing in the story. 

I’m sure we’ve all read books where the writer makes a mistake and we, as a reader, spot it. Even if it’s minor, like calling a college a university or misnaming a street, when we come upon the error it takes us out of the story and makes us question the writer’s whole premise.

My work in progress takes place on the Upper West Side where I now live, and the North Fork of Long Island.  When I wrote the chapters about the North Fork I hadn’t been there in fifty years.  But I’d read articles about the area, especially food and wine columns since there are now so many vineyards there.  I was sure I knew what it was like. I’d been to the Hamptons, aka the South Fork, numerous times.  How different could the two areas be?  I pictured the North Fork like the Hamptons with fewer cars. The traffic in the Hamptons, in case you haven’t heard, is horrific.

My husband and I made a quick trip to the North Fork in July to check it out while visiting the Hamptons.  We made another trip there last week.  For the record, it is nothing like the Hamptons.  The differences are more than just the number of cars on the road. For one thing, there are the vineyards in nearly every town. For another, unlike the Hamptons where you know the ocean is close, but usually can’t see it, on the North Fork, the sound and the bay seem just an “9 iron shot, away,” to quote my husband.  As you drive on the main highway if you can't see water, hang a right or a left, go about a block and you’ll bump into the sound or the bay.  It’s amazing. And yes, I’ve fallen in love with the area, but that’s another story.

I’d already finished my first draft of my heroine Maggie’s first glimpse of the North Fork and Cutchogue, the town where she’s thinking of buying a house.  After my first trip, when I realized it wasn’t another version of the Hamptons, I thought of making up a name for the town where Maggie is looking.  Now, fresh off my second trip, I think not. My Cutchogue, or whatever I name the town, doesn’t belong on the North Fork.  There is no mention of vineyards or frequent glimpses of the water or the fact that the area is still a rag tag kind of a place that hasn’t been completely discovered.  My town, the Cutchogue in my first draft, sounds like the Hamptons without the traffic.  

My character Maggie would never buy in the Hamptons and probably can’t afford it anyway.  But she can afford the North Fork and knowing her, she’d love it. So my job is cut out for me.  I have to rewrite the Cutchogue chapters.  Even if I don’t name the town she’s looking at Cutchogue, it has to have the feel of the North Fork or I’ll be cheating myself and the reader and breaking my contract with them.  

How I Spent My Spring Vacation

I’m sitting in my new black-and-white bathing suit beside the pool at The Intercontinental, San Juan, with five other similarly attired women. We are talking about books. It isn’t just the palm trees, sunshine, the warmth of the Caribbean sun (particularly after this winter), or the ocean breezes making this lush setting a paradise; it is the company and conversation. I feel alive, maybe even a bit smarter than I’ve felt in a long time. My daily reality and shortcomings have been suspended and I am one of the six accomplished people on this reunion.

Every year at this time I fly to Puerto Rico to spend time at a beach resort with my former college roommates. For at least a few hours before the wine starts pouring freely, I feel somehow a bit sharper than usual. We each grab our current reading material, both in hard cover and e-book formats, and gather around the pool, some in the sun and some under an umbrella and tree. We talk, read, snack, and take dunks in the pool when we get too warm.

The books we are reading are a big part of the conversation, along with what movies and shows we’ve seen, what our kids are doing, and some memories of the past.  Even when the subject of the books changes, someone will always bring it back up, whether because she has also read that book or has just seen someone else walk by carrying a book with a familiar title. The hot books of the year are in everyone’s hands and it’s sometimes funny to see someone reading WILD, when that was so two years ago. I was more current, since I had just finished ALL THE LIGHT YOU CANNOT SEE, and was starting THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN. I wanted to know what everyone else was reading as they lay on the chaises on the blue-and-white striped towels handed out along with a color-coded arm band to provide proof that we are paying guests.

I also wanted recommendations as to what book I should read next. One person was reading REDEPLOYMENT and suggested THE MUSEUM OF EXTRAORDINARY THINGS.  Another mentioned AMHERST as well as BLOOD FEUD.  Several highly recommended THE INTERESTINGS, especially since it struck a chord with some of the women. I also heard good things about KILL CHAIN, LOVING FRANK, HUSH, and THE THING AROUND YOUR NECK. I have a lot of reading ahead of me.

A few of the people who attended the reunion have been doing so for as long as fifteen years, some more sporadically. Depending on who attends, the sleeping arrangements can get interesting. One year I met a woman just as I was assigned to share a king-sized bed with her. Luckily, it all worked out, and we didn’t even wake each other up on our numerous nocturnal trips to the bathroom.

While there are several things to do in the surrounding area, we rarely do any of them, basically because we’ve been there, done that. The goals of the weekend might be different for each of us, some love the sun bathing, some the relaxing getaway from everyday life and the time to snooze and read, but talking to old friends is the part of the weekend that makes the memories. We make some new friends, too, as friends of friends are invited, and I discovered some people sitting near us who know one of my oldest friends from high school. We first met the woman last year because she was attracted by our poolside canasta playing and mah jongg games.

For a few moments every year a few of us head to the beach, often to take long walks, although not this year, as I had sprained my ankle on some ice a few weeks earlier. But the waves are wonderful to play in, even when they knock me down and my roommate from forty-five years ago has to pull me up. The bonus was that the jewelry lady who stands near the entryway had something I wanted on her table. The trinkets she sells are inexpensive but some look surprisingly good. I bought a nice necklace for only twenty dollars. I consider it a bargain, but for some reason my husband thinks it cost a lot more, because he adds in the cost of the trip.

This year we were only six people so it was much easier than in the past for us to squeeze into a taxi when we needed to go to a terrific tapas restaurant across from a lively casino where some of us even made a little money.

In recent years the trip has become a memorial to a woman who came every year. She and I went all through school together from elementary school through college. Oddly, her birthday and the anniversary of the day she died are both during the yearly trip to Puerto Rico weekend, and we always remember her and miss her.

I’m only home a day and glad to get back to my normal, if somewhat mundane, life. But our trip organizer is already encouraging us to make reservations for next year. I probably should—I know I can’t wait to go.