Where It All Goes Down
Fallbrook, California; Early 21st Century
Pearl and her family live in sunny Fallbrook, California near the Mexican border. It's a real place, and for the most part, this setting helps us understand the immigration issues taking place in the book since Fallbrook is so close to Mexico. The setting also provides the perfect location for Hoyt's ranching business.
The way Pearl tells it, "people move to Fallbrook, California, because it's sunny 340 days of the year. They move here to grow petunias and marigolds and palms and cycads and cactus and self-propagating succulents and blood oranges and Meyer lemons and sweet limes and, above all, avocados" (2.1). Sounds nice, right?
Beyond providing a logical backdrop for the immigration issues in the story, though, the other big contribution of the setting is that it's a place where wildfires are a legit issue. So when one ravages Fallbrook in the plot, it makes perfect sense.