When brainstorming the plot of One of Those Faces, it was immediately clear to me that it needed to take place in Chicago.
Of course, it could have been set in a number of different places, but Chicago is one of my favorite cities and the overall vibe really stood out to me as a perfect setting for a twisty, trippy psychological suspense novel.
Chicago has so many distinct neighborhoods, so deciding where key scenes would occur was an interesting task.
The main character, Harper, is an artist so Wicker Park immediately came to mind as the perfect location to start the story. If you ask a random Chicagoan what they associate with Wicker Park, the most common responses will likely be “hipsters” and “tacos.” Today Wicker Park has a vibrant art scene and many ecclectic (and often high-end) stores (see Exhibit A and Exhibit B). The lively vibes go late into the night. Buskers play on street corners and the line at the by-the-slice pizza place only gets longer the closer you get to midnight.
Most of the places mentioned in One of Those Faces are fictionalized versions inspired by real places located in Wicker Park, like The Tipsy Paintbrush (where Harper works part-time) and the nameless bookstore with a cafe (an amalgamation of all the wonderful local bookstores in that area).
Elle Grawl 