Content Warning: This section of the guide contains references to domestic abuse, sexualization of racial “otherness,” sexual assault, self-harm, and depression.

The novel begins with a description of its setting: Rebel Corners. Rebel Corners is a crossroad that connects San Ysidro, California, to a highway running from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Rebel Corners is owned by a man named Juan Chicoy and his wife Alice, who have turned it into a bus depot, convenience store, and restaurant for travelers. Juan is a handsome man of Mexican and Irish heritage. Alice both loves and fears her husband “because he [is] a man, and there aren’t very many of them” (7). Juan works as a mechanic for cars that pass by on the highway. He also drives a bus to help passengers connect to the nearest Greyhound station. Juan is assisted by transient teenagers who aren’t good mechanics but are willing to work temporarily until they move on to something else. His current mechanic is a young man nicknamed Pimples Carson.

Alice likes to keep the restaurant neat and considers the many flies that come in the bane of her existence. Alice employs young women as servers in the restaurant, but they are as transient as the teenage boys who work for Juan.