1983

1983 is established through two dated section headings that place the prologue in December and Part II in September. The dates locate separate narrative openings in Manhattan and appear in reverse calendar order, making the year a frame whose first presented moment is not its earliest documented one.

Documented Dates and Settings

The prologue is dated December 1983 and placed at Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan. The heading supplies a precise month and location, situating the novel’s opening in a major Manhattan transit setting.

Part II is dated September 1983 and introduces Kendra Rae Phillips at Antonio’s in the Manhattan Financial District. This is the earlier of the two documented dates, although it appears after the December prologue in the book’s presented sequence.

Narrative Placement

The shift from the December prologue back to September marks a movement to an earlier point in the year. The evidence establishes this ordering across the two headings, but does not specify the intervening chronology or how much time separates the scenes. The year therefore functions as a shared temporal frame for the novel’s opening and Part II, while the month labels signal that the narrative does not begin by following calendar order.