Where It All Goes Down
Modern Day and 18th Century Haiti
Get ready to board the Tardis, because we time travel a lot in this novel. We go back and forth between two events: Shorty's life in the modern-day slums of Haiti and the Haitian Revolution, one of the most remarkable events in human history. Ask any history buff, and they'll tell you that this destroyed Napoleon's dreams of creating a new French Empire in North America. Yep, it's a big deal.
The setting helps us draw connections between the past and the present. While a lot might have changed from the 1790s to 1990s in terms of clothes and hairstyles, this isn't so much the case when it comes to violence and oppression in Haiti. The common thread between these two timelines is Haiti and the independence the characters want but just don't have.
Not much is done to tell us about the surroundings specifically. Shorty gives us some info about the Site being run-down and poverty stricken, and Toussaint describes living in a small cottage or a tent. Aside from this, though, we're on our own. The setting is more important in terms of what it tells us about Haiti and the revolutions, not the individual décor of each of their houses.