View a FREE sample

1. Describe the setting for the book.

It is summer in Haddam, New Jersey. In the peaceful hours of the early morning, realtor Frank Bascombe enjoys the quiet of Cleveland Street while imagining the other areas of town, which he knows so well, waking up in livelier fashion. The marriage enrichment class will be letting out about now, and the high school band is on the field practicing for the coming Fourth of July holiday.

2. What impact does Frank think falling property values have on a town?

Real estate is never far from Frank's mind, and this morning he muses over the falling property values. He sees the property values as an index of a town's happiness, the health of its spirit, and considers the recent encroachment of danger into peaceful Haddam. Only a few months ago, a group of kids passing on mini-bikes had hit Frank on the head with a Pepsi bottle. A couple of burglaries had plagued the town in early May, and worst of all, his former girlfriend Clair Devane, the only black agent in his real estate office, had been brutally raped and murdered while showing a condominium six weeks before.

(read all 60 Short Essay Questions and Answers)

This section contains 5,861 words (approx. 20 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample