Resident Writing

[cos]

A story set in a particular place can show how well the writer knows that place. Sometimes, I think it goes to another level, where you don't just realize the writer knows the place really well, but that you're reading something that could only have been written by someone who had lived there. Even if you know nothing else about the writer, you know they've lived in the place where that story is set.

What comes to mind for me is Zodiac by Neal Stephenson. I had no idea Stephenson had ever lived in Boston when I first read it, but it dawned on during the first chaper. Not in a questioning, "huh, did he ever live here?" way, but as fact: "I didn't realize Neal Stephenson had lived in Boston. Huh."

Have you read something that made you realize the writer had lived in the place where it was set?

Any thoughts on what it is about the writing that can make this so evident?

Comments

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

Sometimes excessive familiarity with a place can impede instead of facilitate. One nit that comes to mind is "Pattern Recognition," in which Gibson offhandedly mentions the wooden escalators in the Camden tube. Those have been gone for a decade, maybe a bit longer, so anyone with current knowledge of the tube station goes "wtf." It's clear he has a long-term familiarity with place, but for whatever reason (whether he didn't know or decided it was too good to pass up) has introduced an older version. It's a bit disorienting.