Brother: A Novel

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses police brutality, murder, and racism.

Setting refers to the time and place in which a novel is set. Scarborough, a suburb of Toronto, Ontario, is the setting of Brother and is crucial to the novel’s plot, theme, and character development. Scarborough mostly comprised of immigrants and their children, reflecting a diverse and multicultural city. However, people often feel stuck in Scarborough, specifically in the Park, the neighborhood where Michael and Francis grow up. Despite its name, the Park is a densely populated urban environment, its only green space being the Rouge, a deep valley once carved by a glacier that runs through the neighborhood. Scarborough has a reputation for high rates of both poverty and violence, which leads to the negative and inaccurate perceptions other Torontonians have of the city. The setting of Scarborough is also important in creating a juxtaposition between what is (Scarborough) and what could have been (Trinidad).