Cass Timberlane, which explores themes of love, marriage, heartache, trust & redemption in the small city of Grand Republic in Central Minnesota, is entirely imaginary, as are all the characters. The characters will be 'identified,' each of them with several different real persons in each of the Minnesota cities: in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Winona, St. Cloud, Mankato, Fergus Falls and particularly, since it is only a little larger than Grand Republic, in the radiant, sea-fronting, hillside city of Duluth. All such guesses will be wrong, but they will be so convincing that even the writer will be astonished to learn how exactly he has drawn some judge or doctor or banker or housewife of whom he has never heard, or regretful to discover how poisonously he is supposed to have described people of whom he is particularly fond.