Ithaca

Ithaca is both a place of retreat and a setting for a small but consequential loss in Richard Flynn’s account. He lived there for two years while pursuing an MA at Cornell after the events of 1987 brought sustained attention from detectives and reporters; later, while in Ithaca, he remembered photographs he had intended to give Laura Baines and found they were gone.

Setting and Circumstances

After the story of 1987 reached the newspapers, Flynn was harassed for a considerable time by police detectives and reporters. The pressure was one factor in his decision to leave Princeton and pursue graduate study at Cornell. He describes the two years he spent in Ithaca as long and dusty, linking the city to a period of departure from his earlier life and residence.

The Missing Photographs

Before leaving for the holidays, Flynn had taken photographs for Signature and kept two copies: one intended for Laura and one for his mother. He forgot to remove them from his shoulder bag before going away, so he never gave Laura her copy. Later, in Ithaca, he remembered the photographs and discovered that they had vanished. The account establishes the disappearance but does not explain what happened to them.

Narrative Significance

Ithaca enters the story through two linked absences: Flynn’s departure from Princeton after public scrutiny, and the photographs that disappeared during the period associated with his move. The city is not described through a broader portrait of its streets or community; its significance lies in this chronology. It is where Flynn spent two years after the events had become public, and where a missed gift became a loss he could only recognize after the fact.