In 2003, under the argument that Saddam Hussein was in possession of weapons of mass destruction following the attacks of September 11, American forces invaded Iraq and toppled Hussein’s regime; Hussein himself was captured, put on trial, and executed in December 2006. However, no weapons of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq, and the resulting power vacuum resulted in more than a decade of instability in the region. It is estimated that anywhere from 150,000 to 650,000 Iraqis were killed as a result of the invasion.

Although the novel is not explicitly about the invasion, the invasion and its aftermath are a core part of the novel, right up to the Whatsitsname himself, who is made of a collection of body parts that appear to have been scavenged by Hadi from explosions around the city. (It is suggested that Hadi began doing this following the death of his friend Nahem in another suicide bombing.) Characters’ fortunes are aligned with their own regime alignments—Faraj is relatively successful in part owing to his friendliness with the new regime, for example, whereas Abu Anmar has watched his business fall apart in part due to his alliances with the old one.