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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. At what time of day does the unnamed narrator reach his residency house in Texas?
(a) Early morning.
(b) The middle of the night.
(c) Late afternoon.
(d) Late morning.

2. When the unnamed narrator attending the private showing of a particular artist's works, he says, "The works felt first and foremost like a" (179) what?
(a) Celebration.
(b) Memorial.
(c) Travesty.
(d) Breath of fresh air.

3. The unnamed narrator's residency house is located across the street from which poet's former home?
(a) Mark Strand.
(b) Seamus Heaney.
(c) Robert Creeley.
(d) Robert Frost.

4. The unnamed narrator states in Part Three that he had been talking about his "performance anxiety with Jon and Sharon and Alena" (89) for how many weeks prior to his appointment to give a semen sample?
(a) 2.
(b) 10.
(c) 4.
(d) 6.

5. In Part Four, the unnamed narrator begins a writers' residency in which Texas city?
(a) Marfa.
(b) San Antonio.
(c) Austin.
(d) Dallas.

Short Answer Questions

1. What form of communication does the unnamed narrator use to communicate with Alena during his residency?

2. How many hours does it take for Michael to drive the unnamed narrator from the airport to his residency house?

3. When the unnamed narrator feels "too tired to write" (173) one day during his residency he watches The Passion of Joan of Arc, the favorite film of which character?

4. What object inside the unnamed narrator's pocket does he keep patting as he approaches the hospital?

5. When the unnamed narrator rises for his first full day in Marfa, he finds his face covered in what substance?

Short Essay Questions

1. What distinction does the unnamed narrator make between his requirements for reading conditions and his requirements for writing conditions?

2. What object does the unnamed narrator keep patting inside his pocket as he makes his way to the seventh floor of New-York Presbyterian Hospital?

3. For what reason does the unnamed narrator travel to Texas in Part Four?

4. Who is Michael and how does the unnamed narrator meet him?

5. On what adventure does the unnamed narrator take eight-year-old Roberto in Part Three?

6. Discuss an instance when Lerner includes an allusion to one of his own literary works.

7. How does the unnamed narrator meet Noor?

8. What is "totaled art" (130) and how had Alena acquired some of it prior to the novel's opening?

9. How does the theme of fatherhood enter the narrative in Part Four?

10. Name three excuses the unnamed narrator uses when people ask to see him during his writers' residency.

(see the answer keys)

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