It seems likely that the house in Jefferson where the Mallisons live originally belonged to the Stevens family into which Mrs. Mallison was born; that would explain why in this novel Chick's Uncle Gavin lives there now, with him and his parents, and that's how the house is described in The Town and elsewhere. While the narrative does not explicitly locate it, several passages allow us to say with some certainty that it is northwest of and not far from the center of town.
The jail where Lucas spends most of the novel is over one hundred years old, "the oldest building in town" along with "one of the churches" (48). Across its front are "four brick columns in shallow basrelief" (48). A northern architect spending a night in it for drunk driving once tried to buy its "heavy oak door," "one solid handhewn piece over two inches thick" (53).
