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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In the narrator's recollection about second grade, to whom does Fanshawe give the present intended for the birthday boy?
(a) His mother.
(b) Dennis Walden.
(c) The narrator.
(d) His girlfriend.

2. What year is it when Blue begins work on the case?
(a) 1947.
(b) 1927.
(c) 1987.
(d) 1997.

3. Which of Fanshawe's friends from Harvard had his father arranged for Fanshawe's job on an oil tanker?
(a) Otis Smart.
(b) Paul Schiff.
(c) Roy Cutbirth.
(d) Jeffrey Brown.

4. During their second conversation, what does Black tell Blue that he does for a living?
(a) He says he is a writer.
(b) He says he is an insurance salesman.
(c) He says he is a teacher.
(d) He says he is a private detective.

5. In the story The Locked Room, when did the narrator meet Fanshawe?
(a) Seven years ago.
(b) In second grade.
(c) When they were babies.
(d) In college.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the amount of the monetary advance White gives Blue?

2. What is absent from amongst Fanshawe's writings in the suitcase?

3. What name does Blue use to introduce himself to Black during their second conversation?

4. How does the man wearing the Halloween mask manage to escape from Blue?

5. What are the two nicknames by which Fanshawe was known on the ship?

Short Essay Questions

1. What project does Stuart Green commission from the narrator? What does Sophie suggest the narrator do to make the project more interesting?

2. Why does the narrator struggle with showing Fanshawe's letter to Sophie? What does he do instead?

3. About what aspect of Fanshawe's writing do Sophie and Fanshawe disagree? What is the compromise that Fanshawe offers her a few months before his disappearance?

4. What initiates the argument between Sophie and the narrator at the end of Chapter 7? What is the status of their relationship when the narrator leaves for Paris?

5. When Blue first meets White in the novel Ghosts, what type of case does he think he is becoming involved in? What does he notice about White that makes him change his opinion?

6. When Blue enters Black's apartment disguised as the Fuller Brush man, what does Black tell Blue his profession is? When Blue later breaks into Black's apartment and steals the papers from his desk, what does he find them to contain?

7. What is unusual about the letter that the narrator supposedly receives from Fanshawe? How does this quirk help to convince the narrator of the letter's veracity?

8. What does the narrator learn about Fanshawe through his interviews with Fanshawe's friends and family? What is he looking for that he does not find?

9. In The Locked Room, what is Sophie Fanshawe's condition when her husband goes missing? Describe the trajectory of her emotional reaction to his disappearance.

10. When Black speaks to Blue about Walt Whitman, what two internal organs does he compare? What do these viscera have to do with the profession of writing?

(see the answer keys)

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