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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why is the murder case of 1921 thrown out of court?

2. When the boy and his brother, Liam, are taken across the river by their father, what does his father's explanation about Eddie reveal to the boy?

3. How do the boy's father's parents die?

4. Why does the boy's father hit him in Chapter 3?

5. What does the boy's father do for a living?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the narrator.

2. What happens to Larry McLaughlin?

3. Why is the disappearance of Uncle Eddie such a mystery?

4. How does the boy get rid of the rat problem?

5. Who is Tony and what happened to him?

6. Why doesn't the author ever reveal the narrator's first name?

7. Why is Una's death seen as an outlet for the boy's mother?

8. How do we see the boy react and respond to his circumstances in Chapter 1 instead of accepting them at face value?

9. What does the boy's grandfather tell him right before he dies?

10. Describe the events surrounding the distillery and what happens to it.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Which parts of the story and characters of the novel do you identify with? Why?

Essay Topic 2

As the novel progresses, the mystery of Eddie's disappearance is pieced together by the boy narrator.

1. What does the boy learn about his family because of the family secret?

2. How has the boy's relationship with his parents changed as the secret has been revealed?

3. How has the boy's determination to find out the secret changed as the secret slowly becomes revealed?

Essay Topic 3

How might the story progress differently if told through the voice of another character? How does the young boy add to the story's mystery? What might we know differently if one of his parents narrated the story instead?

(see the answer keys)

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