Setting

Physical setting

The main physical setting in Will Self’s short story “The North London Book of the Dead” is London, UK. Particular attention is given to North London, where the narrator meets his mother after she dies. He meets her in Crouch End, which is an area of North London (p. 118, ll. 22-25), a place which his mother avoided when alive: “Mother had always been such a crushing snob about where people lived in London; certain suburbs – such as Crouch End – were so incredibly non-U in Mother’s book of form” (p. 120, ll. 18-21). 

In this light, London becomes the place where the realm of the dead and the realm of the living meet. At some point, the narrator’s mother claims that London is the place where “dead services operate alongside ‘live’ ones” (p. 125, l. ...