Where It All Goes Down
Chicago, Illinois
The setting for Things Not Seen is super normal. Set in Chicago, Illinois, we're hanging out in a real place, and Bobby lives in an ordinary house in an ordinary time, complete with ordinary weather patterns. Check it out:
The good thing about February in Chicago is that no one thinks it's weird if you're all bundled up. When I get on the city bus headed toward campus, I'm just another person who doesn't want to freeze to death in the wind chill. (3.1)
In this very normal, very real setting, some very abnormal things happen. The fact that the novel is set in Chicago just makes the things that happen to Bobby seem more abnormal; it highlights how peculiar his situation is. This isn't a fantastical land, and by making the setting so normal and believable, the novel roots the whole story in the believable instead of venturing off into the land of the absurd.
After all, the protagonist becoming invisible is enough of an abnormal situation, already. It would distract from the overall story if it took place in a made-up town or a magical city where all sorts of weird things happen. By setting the tale in Chicago, the reader is only asked to suspend his or her disbelief about one aspect: Bobby's inexplicable invisibility.