Novels, and a Sense of Place

From an essay, "Novels & Places":
I need to seed a book in a place. In my mind I plant the idea of the book in one very specific patch of ground and hope it will grow from there. Until I know where that patch of ground is, I'm lost and the story, the book, that I'm trying to write does not come into focus. I can’t grasp it. I have no traction on a story until I have a place...
read the rest here

Current novel-in-progress is set in Frankfurt during the Weimar-era 1920s and Nazi 1930s. My father's hometown. Frankfurt was heavily bombed during the war but the IG Farben building, where he
worked until 1934, survives...