Explore the real-world places that appear in I'm Fine and Neither Are You by Camille Pagán. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include University of Michigan Campus, Huron River, Gallup Park, Ann Arbor Farmers Market, Kerrytown District and 7 more.
Central Campus, Ann Arbor — Where Penelope works
Penelope works as a communications professional at the University of Michigan, navigating the pressures of her career while her personal life unravels after her best friend Jenny's sudden death. The campus represents the grinding professional ambitions that Penelope and those around her have built their identities upon, and the tension between career success and authentic living sits at the heart of the novel's themes.
The University of Michigan was founded in 1817 and moved to Ann Arbor in 1837. Its Central Campus has been the intellectual and cultural heart of the city for nearly two centuries, featuring the iconic Burton Memorial Tower and the Law Quad.
The University of Michigan remains one of the nation's top public research universities with over 47,000 students. Central Campus is open to the public and features museums, gardens, and historic architecture.
Visit: University of Michigan Central Campus (landmark)
Along the Huron River, Ann Arbor — A place of reflection
The natural world along the Huron River serves as a contemplative backdrop in the novel, where Penelope processes the grief of losing her best friend Jenny and reconsiders the choices she has made in her own life. The river's continuity and quiet movement mirror Penelope's internal journey toward honesty — with herself, her husband Sanjay, and the memory of Jenny.
The Huron River has shaped Ann Arbor's geography and identity since the city's founding. Native peoples and early settlers relied on it for sustenance and transportation. The river runs through the heart of the city and has been the focus of conservation and parkland development throughout the 20th century.
The Huron River corridor is now part of the Border-to-Border Trail system and includes Gallup Park, Argo Park, and numerous canoe and kayak liveries. It is a beloved recreational resource for Ann Arbor residents year-round.
Visit: Huron River Water Trail (park)
3000 Fuller Rd — Outdoor escape for Penelope
Parks and green spaces like Gallup appear throughout the novel as places where Penelope escapes the suffocating pressures of her domestic and professional life. After Jenny's death, Penelope walks and reflects, trying to reconcile the version of Jenny she thought she knew — perfect mother, perfect wife — with the secret struggles Jenny never shared.
Gallup Park was developed in the 1960s and 1970s as Ann Arbor expanded its parks system. It sits along the Huron River and includes lagoons formed when gravel was mined from the area, creating a unique wetland landscape within the city.
Gallup Park is one of Ann Arbor's most popular parks, featuring boat rentals, paved trails, picnic areas, and access to the Huron River. It is open year-round and draws families, cyclists, and runners.
Visit: Gallup Park (park)
315 Detroit St — Community gathering place
The social fabric of Ann Arbor — neighbors, acquaintances, the performance of a well-ordered life — is embodied in spaces like the farmers market. Penelope and Jenny both moved through such community spaces presenting curated versions of themselves, and the novel's central revelation is how little even best friends may truly know about each other's inner lives and private struggles.
The Ann Arbor Farmers Market has operated in Kerrytown since 1919, making it one of Michigan's oldest continuously operating markets. It became a cornerstone of the Kerrytown district's revitalization in the late 20th century.
The Ann Arbor Farmers Market operates on Wednesdays and Saturdays from May through December, and Saturdays only in winter. It features dozens of vendors selling local produce, artisan goods, and prepared foods in the historic Kerrytown Marketplace.
Visit: Ann Arbor Farmers Market (landmark)
407 N Fifth Ave — Ann Arbor's neighborhood hub
The close-knit neighborhood atmosphere of Ann Arbor, where friends like Penelope and Jenny can live in proximity and weave their lives together through shared errands, coffee runs, and casual encounters, is rooted in districts like Kerrytown. The novel's portrayal of suburban-adjacent city life — comfortable, progressive, outwardly put-together — draws on this milieu.
Kerrytown is one of Ann Arbor's oldest commercial districts, developed in the late 19th century. The Kerrytown Marketplace complex was converted from a historic warehouse in 1969 and became a model for urban adaptive reuse, anchoring a revival of the neighborhood.
Kerrytown is a thriving shopping and dining district featuring independent boutiques, restaurants, the Ann Arbor Farmers Market, and Zingerman's Deli. It is widely considered one of Ann Arbor's most charming and walkable neighborhoods.
Visit: Kerrytown Marketplace (landmark)
422 Detroit St — Iconic Ann Arbor landmark
The social rituals of Ann Arbor life — grabbing lunch, meeting a friend, the small ceremonies of everyday connection — take place against a backdrop of the city's beloved institutions. Zingerman's represents the kind of place where people like Penelope and Jenny might share a meal and the carefully edited highlights of their lives, never revealing the full truth beneath.
Zingerman's Delicatessen was founded in 1982 by Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw. It grew from a single deli into a family of eight businesses known collectively as Zingerman's Community of Businesses, becoming a nationally recognized model of entrepreneurship and food culture.
Zingerman's Deli on Detroit Street remains one of the most famous delis in the United States, featured in countless national food publications. It continues to serve thousands of customers weekly with its extensive sandwich menu and artisan food products.
Visit: Zingerman's Delicatessen (restaurant)
343 S Fifth Ave — Center of Ann Arbor intellectual life
Penelope's reflective, literary sensibility and her work in communications at a major university situate her firmly within Ann Arbor's educated, bookish culture. The library represents the life of the mind that characters like Penelope and Jenny cultivated — and the gap between intellectual self-awareness and genuine emotional honesty that the novel ruthlessly interrogates.
The Ann Arbor District Library has served the community since 1856. The current downtown branch building was completed in 2016 after a community-driven design process, replacing an earlier structure that had served the city for decades.
The AADL downtown branch is a modern, award-winning facility offering books, digital media, programming, and community meeting spaces. It is open to all residents and visitors and serves as a cultural anchor in downtown Ann Arbor.
Visit: Ann Arbor District Library — Downtown Branch (library)
Burns Park, Ann Arbor — Family life and domestic tension
Penelope and Sanjay live in a house in Ann Arbor's leafy residential neighborhoods, raising their two children while each carrying secret discontents. The novel's domestic drama — Sanjay's hidden career ambitions, Penelope's buried resentments, the performative happiness of their social circle — plays out against the backdrop of comfortable single-family homes where everything looks fine from the outside.
Burns Park is one of Ann Arbor's most desirable residential neighborhoods, developed primarily in the early 20th century. It is named for the park at its heart and is known for its tree-lined streets, historic homes, and strong neighborhood association.
Burns Park remains a highly sought-after Ann Arbor neighborhood, home to young professionals and university faculty. Burns Park itself features a pool, tennis courts, and playgrounds, and the neighborhood hosts an annual fair every summer.
Visit: Burns Park (park)
1800 N Dixboro Rd — Quiet refuge at the city's edge
The natural world offers Penelope a place to breathe and reckon with grief throughout the novel. Botanical gardens — spaces of cultivated beauty that require constant, invisible labor to maintain — serve as a metaphor for the kind of marriages and friendships the novel examines: outwardly flourishing, internally effortful, and more fragile than they appear.
The Matthaei Botanical Gardens were established in 1915 and moved to their current location on the city's east side in 1960. They are operated by the University of Michigan and encompass over 300 acres of natural areas and cultivated gardens.
The Matthaei Botanical Gardens are open to the public year-round and feature a conservatory with tropical, temperate, and arid plant collections, as well as extensive outdoor gardens and natural areas with walking trails.
Visit: Matthaei Botanical Gardens (park)
S Main St — The social spine of downtown
Jenny and Matt's seemingly ideal life — the successful author husband, the effortlessly capable wife — is the kind of life that looks most glamorous viewed from the outside, from a dinner out on Main Street or a cocktail party in a beautifully decorated home. The novel dismantles the mythology of the perfect couple by revealing what Jenny concealed even from her closest friend, Penelope.
Main Street has been Ann Arbor's commercial heart since the city's founding in 1824. By the late 20th century it had transformed from a retail corridor into a destination for upscale restaurants, bars, and boutiques, anchoring Ann Arbor's reputation as one of the Midwest's most livable cities.
Main Street remains Ann Arbor's premier dining and nightlife district, featuring dozens of independently owned restaurants and bars. The annual Ann Arbor Art Fair and other civic events center on this corridor, drawing visitors from across the region.
Visit: Main Street Ann Arbor (landmark)
1500 E Medical Center Dr — Crisis and reckoning
Jenny's sudden death — the inciting crisis of the novel — and its aftermath force Penelope to confront what she didn't know about her best friend's inner life and health struggles. The hospital represents the moment where the novel's comfortable suburban surface cracks open, forcing Penelope and those around Jenny to reckon with secrets kept and help never asked for.
The University of Michigan Health System is one of the nation's leading academic medical centers, founded in 1869. Michigan Medicine, as it is now known, encompasses multiple hospitals and clinics and serves as a major teaching and research institution.
Michigan Medicine remains one of the top-ranked hospital systems in the United States, consistently appearing in U.S. News & World Report's Best Hospitals list. It employs over 30,000 people and serves patients from across the Midwest and beyond.
1055 Longshore Dr — Escape along the river
The Huron River recreational corridor — kayaking, walking the trails, the particular Ann Arbor habit of finding solace in nature close to home — provides the physical landscape for Penelope's emotional journey. In a novel about the distance between how people present themselves and who they truly are, moving through open water offers a metaphor for the transparency and vulnerability Penelope learns to embrace.
Argo Park and its canoe livery have been popular Ann Arbor destinations since the mid-20th century. The park sits at the head of Argo Pond, a reservoir created by the Argo Dam on the Huron River, and has been a focal point for debates about dam removal and river restoration in recent decades.
Argo Canoe Livery operates seasonal kayak, canoe, and tube rentals, and the park features a popular whitewater section below the dam. The area is a hub for Ann Arbor's outdoor recreation community and connects to the city's extensive trail system.
Visit: Argo Canoe Livery (park)
More by Camille Pagán: All Camille Pagán books
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