What if this story did not have an "exotic" setting? Adichie

C. Adichie's New Yorker story "Birdsong" is pretty good - at least it's a real story and it builds some kind of tension through a rather simple narrative device - woman in a traffic jam notices woman in adjacent car staring at her, wonders if the woman is the wife of her (wealthy) lover/man/boyfriend (she's not sure what to call him). Not a perfect story (spoiler here) in that, well, after all - we never learn who the woman is, and the final confrontation amounts to nothing - but it is a bit of a portrait of a young woman's life. She's a fool for getting involved with a wealthy Nigerian who basically keeps her as his mistress (story takes place in Lagos). She is, however, not very self-aware or analytic, seems to have no qualms about getting involved with a married man and no guilt or shame about living off of his wealth and enjoying the comforts he provides her. In a way, that's the strength of the story - it has no moral qualms, and it's told from the "other woman's" point of view. It's also the weakness of the story, in a way. Is the author as unaware as her character? Always a danger to identify the author too closely with his or her narrators, but there's a sense here that much is glossed over, much greater moral vacuity permitted, if the character's poor and her lover is wealthy - as in way too many American movies, BTW, e.g., Good as it Gets, that Gere-Roberts vehicle whose title I've forgotten. From another POV, isn't Adichie's character just a whore? Would we be as tolerant of and engaged with this story it if didn't have an "exotic" setting, if it was a young woman in NYC or LA? We would certainly expect her to be more aware, critical, edgy, or cruel.