The setting as a character, and why the places in some novels stay with you

Some books leave you with a plot. Others leave you with a place.

You finish the last page and realise what you miss most is not the twist or the romance or even the protagonist. It is the street, the house, the river, the city at dusk. The particular kind of light that only exists in that fictional world.

The quiet power of slow books

Some novels refuse to be hurried. They ask for patience, not because they’re difficult, but because they move differently. You don’t tear through them. You live in them.

I was thinking about this as I slowly make my way through Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry. It’s that kind of book. There are, of course, plenty of others.