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Around Times Square in New York City – images of...

May 1966
The lav itself was tiny; its air felt warm and full. The walls of pale green tiles seemed to bend under a heavy film of water exhaled from my hot bath. Wet hair stuck to my face, which dripped with sweat. My cheeks burned. My eyelashes spilled water droplets so large I couldn’t see. I was sunk up to my neck in hot, sudsy bath water, soaking in my elixir of...

Karen Russell's novel Swamplandia! (based on one of the stories in her collection St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves) is the mystical coming of age story of Ava Bigtree, a skilled alligator-wrestler at her family's failing theme park in the Everglades. Setting plays an important role in this book, and made me notice the settings within a setting....