Of Mice and Men Of Mice and Men takes place in the late 1930's and the early 1940's. The exact location of the book is in a place south of Soledad on a ranch in the Salinas Valley which is in California. You can imagine that during this time there wasn't much to do. In fact Soledad, the place where the story is located, means a lonely place and loneliness in Spanish. I could imagine very blandly dressed people with probably dirty clothes, probably average clothes like jeans and a shirt. Where this book takes place is in a region of the United States where there aren't many cities nor many people. You could expect while reading this book that it will be a very sad book,