Meridian Hills

Meridian Hills is a residential neighborhood in Indianapolis, Indiana, notable in the story as the location of Isaac's home after he loses his eyesight to cancer. The neighborhood is described as being next to a fancy private school, and Isaac's house is a small ranch house, a setting that becomes a site of quiet companionship and shared grief after Augustus Waters's death.

Isaac's Home and Life After Blindness

Isaac lives in a small ranch house in Meridian Hills, situated next to a private school. After his surgery to remove his remaining eye, he returns home to this house, where he must learn to navigate a world without sight. His mother is present, and his younger brother Graham lives there as well. The house becomes a place where Isaac adapts to his new reality, using a computer that reads his emails aloud in a voice he can change by gender or accent.

A Place for Friendship and Mourning

After Augustus Waters dies, Hazel Grace Lancaster visits Isaac at his Meridian Hills home. They spend time together playing a text-based video game called "Deception," in which they navigate a dark cave by giving verbal commands to the computer. During this visit, Isaac reveals that Augustus had been writing something for Hazel—a sequel to An Imperial Affliction—and this information sends Hazel on a search for the missing pages. The house in Meridian Hills thus serves as a crucial link between Hazel and the last traces of Augustus's efforts to leave something for her.

Narrative Significance

Meridian Hills functions as a quiet, domestic counterpoint to the more dramatic settings of the story—the hospital, the church basement, Amsterdam. It is where Isaac, having lost both his eyesight and his girlfriend Monica, begins to rebuild his life, and where Hazel, reeling from Augustus's death, receives the clue that leads her to Augustus's final letter. The neighborhood represents the ordinary world that continues after tragedy, a place where the characters must learn to live with their losses.