Setting in fiction: It helps if you live there
The fine blog Detectives Beyond Borders recently had a discussion about the significance of setting in crime fiction. Peter was commenting on an assertion by Clive James that many of today's international crime novels are so crammed with geographic detail that they are essentially guidebooks. I've had the same reaction, most recently to " A Small Death in Lisbon ," where the protagonist's steps through the city are described in such detail that it begins to sound like a guy following Mapquest directions. But then it occurred to me that such detail is a lot easier to appreciate if you're actually familiar with the place being described. Then it's not a distraction at all; it's evocative. At least that's been my reaction to the three novels James Lee Burke has set in my hometown of Missoula, Mont.: "Black Cherry Blues," "Bitterroot," and "In the Moon of Red Ponies." I know very well every road, river, building an...