Seventeen

Much of Seventeen's charm for many readers will be found in the novel's quality as a period piece. It provides a solid sense of setting, character, and values as they were in the American Midwest in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Although the novel's setting is not explicitly identified, Booth Tarkington's midwestern readers of 1916, and particularly his Indiana readers, would assume from the first sentence's reference to Washington Street and Central Avenue that the novel's action takes place in Indianapolis, Tarkington's hometown. The author's detailed descriptions of costume and customs of white middle-class Americans and his rendering of speech patterns and vocabulary not only are a source of his deliberate humor but also serve to ground the novel in a tangible realism.