Setting the Setting
The city of Baldridge through the eyes of Tommy (in an art project he worked on before the school year.
Setting a Setting
On Tommy’s places, food, and establishing refuge in the city of Baldridge.
I walked through the marble entryway of the ornate, war-torn cathedral. Its great ceiling blurring into the sky, I tread over stained glass and beneath the memories of my husband’s doomed coronation. My footsteps crunched the blue and crimson glass and echoed through the silence of the great hall, causing haunted memories to stir in their reverberations. A slow drizzle fell through the burned out ceiling, and I closed my eyes and let the moisture cool my brow.
I gasped. I spun around and clutched the phoenix pommel of my sword - but I was too late.
I was not alone.
—
The above is an excerpt from the Moonlit Chronicles, a 600 page fantasy book I wrote in high school. The book itself is not only not good. It’s bad. Real bad. But one thing I can still look back on was the love I had for crafting the settings in the story. The Haraciam Cathedral described in the above scene was almost a character in the book itself, and made many transformations through the novel. Starting as a pristine, holy place representative of the state of the Kingdom, and slowly transforming into a ruin, while equally representing the state of a Kingdom collapsing by the novel’s end. Reading Tolkien, Philip Pullman, and Stephen King’s The Eye of the Dragon gave me a deep love for establishing setting in a fantasy novel. This love has only grown deeper as I’ve read George R.R. Martin, Brandon Sanderson, and Rainbow Rowell.
I was beyond happy to be able to visit Jumièges in France in 2019. It was a major inspiration for the scene above.
The day I finished The Moonlit Chronicles, I decided to never to read it again, and on the same day I started Bleak. I carried the love I had establishing a setting in the fantasy genre into the Young Adult Bleak. It was important for me to establish Latimer High School as a central character in Bleak. A dominant setting that would have a radically different relationship with every POV character.
Tommy’s Places:
I wanted to establish the “different” Tommy’s in the book. How Tommy survived at school vs. his comfort at home felt like an essential duality to establish early in the story. Latimer High felt like a kingdom for Adam and Rosi, Its health, much like the cathedral in Moonlit Chronicles is reflective of their status in LHS. But for Tommy, a healthy Latimer was something to survive. Tommy’s reputation is established early on from the other POV characters in the story. The “monster” reputation Tommy carries is a stitch in each character’s observation of Tommy — even the characters who warmly receive Tommy (such as Cullen and Mia) are well aware of the reputation he carries.
What was important for me to establish in the book was the radical difference in how Tommy was perceived at home compared to how he was perceived at school. Seeing Tommy’s cousin warmly welcome him after the school day was really important. Tommy also exists in a bit of a niche, living in one of the few working class neighborhoods in the wealthy Latimer School District. This difference is not acknowledged by the majority of the educators at LHS, and not weighed in their expectations of Tommy in the classroom.
Tommy lives on Red Oak Road in Kind Pines. He lives in a single wide trailer without skirting. His home is very much reminiscent of the single wide trailers my Dad lived in through his upbringing.
#16 in Dechert, Tennessee. A home my Dad lived in for many years. The woman pictured was kind enough to let my father see his childhood home again.
Educators in my Dad’s schools often didn’t take time to understand how difficult life could be in my Dad’s home and this often made school a place to simply survive. I developed a complete understanding for this difficulty in 5th grade. When I was 11. I was bullied in school while my parents and I faced financial insecurity at home. I once came home to a locked door and found out our house was going to be re-possessed by the bank.** The next morning, my teacher made an example of me for how messy my desk was and had me clean it in front of the entire class. This was one of the worst days of my life. I was made fun of for being disorganized and messy on a routine basis for the rest of the year. Honestly, it was kind of hard to care about my desk when I didn’t know if I’d be able to get into my own house when I walked home - but my teacher didn’t care about that. He cared not about me, but only about how my desk looked in his classroom - and that apathy is something that struck me, and is reflected in Tommy’s status as an outsider in his own school.
**Shoutout to my Mom, who got us out of that situation and found a way for us to keep our house in a superheroic fashion.
In high school, I felt this outsider presence in a different way. I went to school in a town called Buhler, even though I lived in Inman. My friend, Dylan, also made the jump to Buhler, even though he lived in Hutch. The process to getting into Buhler as out of district students was confusingly difficult, and the “outsider" status was something we both carried throughout high school. Dylan talked about how he needed to provide grades, transcripts and had an interview to get into school - and his journey to get into our high school inspired Rosi Williams, an out of district student in Bleak who had to use her Aunt’s address to get into Latimer (explained in a cut scene).
Myself and Dylan, and the full glory of 2007~ era photo booth.
Tommy shares this outsider status with Cullen Armstrong, who lives in a home that was very much shaped by racial redlining and discriminatory housing policies. A separation I was blown away by when I taught in Kansas City, Kansas. When I taught in Wyandotte County, 88% of my students were students of color, and 95% were on free and reduced lunch. One day during my teaching, the topic of my book came up in the classroom. When I was telling them about my characters, the students were interested to learn more about Cullen. Especially when I mentioned that Cullen was a black student in a predominantly white school. They asked if I addressed that in the book, and I said “not really.” The response I got was, “Honeycutt, if you want this book to be real, then you can’t just “not address that”’. A couple of my students then shared how they used a family members address to go to a wealthier school in Johnson County, Kansas City. But both students who tried that experience had a really haunting assessment (“the schools had more money, but I wasn’t ever welcome to learn there”). This conversation had me completely re-write and re-envision Cullen in Bleak. I will forever be thankful for my students in my 5th hour class at J.C. Harmon who were kind enough to have that conversation with me - it shaped one of the biggest characters in Bleak.
By Andrew R. Gustafson, Curator of Interpretation, Johnson County Museum (showing the stark racial divisions in Kansas City in 1939, divisions that have unfortunately, largely remained).
It took me way too long to realize how red-lining (the policies of U.S. housing agencies) prevented black families and other families of color from buying houses in suburban communities in the United States. This prevented a lot of black families from being able to accrue credit, while white families used the G.I. Bill as a spring-board to buy homes in the suburbs. Black veterans, despite fighting in World War II, also were denied homes in the suburbs. This created a generational wealth gap separated by racial lines.
Government policies also led to the evisceration of Kansas City’s jazz district, a community shaped by Kansas City’s black populations and performers. Kansas City was known as a beacon of Jazz in the United States. It’s R&B and Jazz presence wer even mentioned alongside Chicago and New Orleans. Kansas City, in recent years, has worked to restore their historic black landmarks and jazz centers along 18th and Vine (corresponding with downtown Kansas City’s revival). But, Kansas City’s destruction of such a historic part of their community loomed large as I considered Cullen’s story.
Cullen’s story was very much shaped by the neglect his community (3rd street) faced from the community, and never really feeling at “home” in Latimer with teachers who never visited his neighborhood, or classmates who were largely located in other parts of the city. Cullen’s neighborhood is composed of homes largely owned by the “Cheeseboro” family. This family is based off of rich landlords who owned large sections of homes lived in by black families in poverty. These landlords often lived in other parts of KC, were disconnected from the black community, and allowed their homes to fall into states of disrepair while allowing property values to plummet in these areas. This theme of the upper class pillaging the working class while giving nothing back to working class communities is a constant theme in Bleak - reflected in both Cullen’s upbringing in the Baldridge city and Tommy’s more rural upbringing.
Cullen’s pressure to join Baldridge, a school district in a part of the city that is much more diverse and has many students who also grew up in Cheeseboro owned homes- is an underlying tension Cullen feels throughout the novel - along with his struggle looking to what his next step is and the feeling of being unprepared for college from his courses at LHS.
For Latimer’s surrounding city, I attempted to channel American literary regionalism that was popular with American writers in the late 1800’s. Charles Chestnutt, Zora Neale Hurston, and Flannery O’Connor were major influences for me in this genre. This genre was perhaps best known for giving striking detail about specific settings, cultures, and struggles that were found in specific parts of the United States. With travel being so difficult for much of the country, regionalist fiction was often someone’s only way to learn about other parts of the U.S,. As I was taught, however, as travel became more accessible, the interest the regionalism genre fell. However, I re-considered this position when I attended a national debate tournament in Omaha, Nebraska. I met debaters from NYC and LA who went on a field trip to see COWS. Yes, cows. The debaters were beyond stoked. Some told me the first time they ever saw a cow was when nationals were in Derby, Kansas and were ‘pumped” to return to the midwest for that reason. Their genuine excitement stuck with me. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that as our population takes flight from rural areas for cities (largely due to, what I feel, is a systemically corporatization of our nation’s agricultural practices. Including an effort for corporate agriculture to buy up locally owned practices without any regard for local communities). The more this practice happens and is allowed to go unchecked, the more unknown rural components of life will feel to the majority of the U.S. This inspired me to make this setting a forefront in Bleak.
Amber Waves - photo caught by me outside of my hometown of Inman, Kansas.
This setting can be fully appreciated if you went up my hometown’s railroad tracks. Tommy’s trips to the railroad tracks were inspired by my habit to sit on the edge of my elementary school’s playground on bad days. I would look at the railroad tracks, and dream of taking a train far away from my hometown.
This model of a rail-box boxcar sat at my writing desk for the majority of the time I worked on Bleak.
Up the railroad tracks you’d find my town’s Grain Elevator. This grain elevator was really symbolic of what’s happening in rural places all over the country. If my memory serves, a major agriculture corporation bought the elevator in the 90’s, and a year later, they closed it down. It stands as a consistent reminder of what was one of the most prosperous businesses of our community, and yet it hasn’t been worked in for years. Those jobs have left to other areas. This agricultural backdrop shaped the waving wheat fields that were central in Bleak, as well as the rural decay found in the abandoned buildings around the crops.
I walked to this place many times throughout my childhood in Inman, Kansas.
Kansas sunsets and the state’s golden hour also has a major presence in Bleak.
The city of Baldridge was heavily shaped by Lawrence, Kansas. The rivalry between Lawrence High School and Lawrence Free State was so large that I was even aware of it as a non-resident college student. The town was divided in half, those who lived on the north side of 15th street went to Lawrence Free State, while those on the south side went to Lawrence High. The schools often talked about building a “healthy rivalry” against each other - but in the time I lived in Lawrence, I saw this boundary reinforce class divisions, elitist attitudes, and discrimination. These divisions, I found, were started and reinforced by the schools and often were negatively promoted through “school spirit.
Lawrence, KS (USD 497’s) school district
The city of Baldridge is an homage to Mary E. Baldridge, a woman who was instrumental in rebuilding the city of Lawrence after the 1863 burning of Lawrence by slave-state invaders. The Kaw River also looms large in the story. The Kaw’s impact of Langston Hughes’ writing is something I often reflect on. I wanted to share the setting of the Kaw through the Riverfront Brewery, a treasured place in the novel that’s set along the Kaw that could allow the characters to reflect about the river - even going into one of Langston Hughes’ poems about a river’s tempting escape on dark days.
The Kansas River (The Kaw) with high waters, Lawrence, KS.
The Kaw also presents a very real separation between Lawrence and North Lawrence. North Lawrence felt almost like an entirely different community in Lawrence, KS, and I heard folks from North Lawrence talk about how they felt ignored by the rest of the city - yet the Fraser Hall tower on KU’s campus always hung in view, even if it felt inaccessible for an entire part of the city. This inspired the Levine Library, a Library visible to Cullen and Tommy. It was always in sight, but always feels out of reach for both characters. Naming the city Baldirdge was an homage to the very real duality of Lawrence, Kansas. A place many find underlying hope in its identity as a historical beacon for the free state cause, yet a place where I saw incredible contemporary disparities for the size of the city.
The Food inside Bleak:
My love and description of food also comes from reading fantasy. Meals stood out in the fantasy genre because of how special big feasts were in my own childhood (when mom had the time to cook, and sitting down for the first time in a while). In fantasy - feasts also felt treasured. They represented the rarity of food and reflected the pristine nature of the event. I wanted to maintain this style and these feelings in Bleak. Add just tiny descriptors that played at the senses, enough so that any reader would instantly taste the food I was describing, and how it represented what the characters were feeling like in the moment. This was also a chance to evoke a midwestern regionalism in the novel. Seeing chili paired with gooey, warm cinnamon rolls during holiday season was a staple of my childhood, and just the scents of that food in the air would be so inviting to Tommy - who grew up in a home where such a pairing was rare at the dinner table. Food means so much to Tommy. The gestures of something as simple as a Dr. Pepper from Mr. Austin or a limeade from Dexter meant the world to Tommy. Or Thayne’s complete acceptance being paired with a warm, shaken up off brand version of Dr. Pepper. Food also leads to one of the most important places of the novel - which is the school annex.
Chili and Cinnamon Rolls, a childhood and holiday staple, courtesy of https://whatscookingamerica.net/chili-and-cinnamon-rolls.htm
The Refuge
The school’s annex, also known as the “Latimer Watchtower,” is not a place that would attract Adam or Rosi in the novel. Their comfort could not be higher in plain sight inside Latimer. They love the status quo in the high school at the beginning of the book. Dexter, Cullen, Mia and Tommy, on the other hand, have to find a refuge beyond the eyes of Latimer’s administration to be themselves in the high school. The annex was inspired by my own high school annex, a place known largely known only to debaters and band kids, who held practices, prank calls, and sometimes cut class in there while the adults in the building lost track that the room existed at all. The Latimer Watchtower, at its core, was inspired by my own childhood treehouse. A place my friends and I often took refuge in after bad days in school. My hope was to draw a very distinct contrast in LHS’ singular setting by having the Annex inside the school, and further develop Latimer High School as a very real character in itself. While Tommy, Mia, Cullen and Dexter can feel constantly assailed by the institution of their high school, they can still find comfort, and happiness while sharing pizza rolls (if not a midwestern dish of chili and cinnamon rolls) in Latimer’s overlooked Watchtower. It is my hope that you feel the weight of the setting through the eyes of this character, especially the refuge the characters can find in the face of enforced disparities.