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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. What does Imani joke about Fabiola in Chapter 20?

2. Who first owned the house, as said in "8800 American Street"?

3. In "Drayton's Story," what does Dray say all the world did to him?

4. Who cooks the Thanksgiving meal in Chapter 23?

5. What business did Andrian Weiss get into after being fired from his job?

Short Essay Questions

1. Where do the cousins and Fabiola go in Chapter 23? What does Dray come by and do?

2. In Chapter 22, who does Fabiola ignore? Why does she ignore him?

3. In Chapter 31 where does Fabiola say she was when the Haiti earthquake hit? How does she relate this to when she opens her eyes in the present?

4. In Chapter 32, what does the Francois family do with 8800 American Street? What do they drive away to do?

5. What does Fabiola tell her cousins in Chapter 27 about her and her mother? How does she connect this to Bag Leg?

6. What do the Francois sisters intend in Chapter 26 to pay back Q? How does Fabiola feel about this?

7. In Chapter 30, what does Dray do to Fabiola? What does she tell him to do?

8. What happens to Donna in the evening in Chapter 23? What does Fabiola think about America?

9. In "Drayton's Story," what does Dray reveal about his connection to Phillip? What had he felt because of that connection?

10. What does Fabiola dream in Chapter 21? Why does she dream this?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

When Dray dies, in the next chapter, "Drayton's Story," he says that you realize after death you have died before and recalls how he previously died while running with a bullet to the head (313). How do his lives and deaths connect to the larger struggle of systematic racism? Tie his story to one other character's story. How are they fighting against something larger than themselves? What is the novel saying with this circularity about the history of racism and systematic struggle?

Essay Topic 2

In Chapter Twenty One, Fabiola dreams of the history of 8800 American Street, and then in the next chapter the detailed history of 8800 American Street is revealed. What does this structure say about how Fabiola learns the stories revealed in the novel? Are they actually being spoken to her or does she learn them in other ways? If she learns them in other ways, what are these ways of knowing? Choose three of the backstories to develop an argument about how she knows these.

Finally, what is the novel saying by having these stories revealed in this way? What is Fabiola's role related to the other characters of the novel and to the reader?

Essay Topic 3

In Chapter Thirty Two, Pri asks Fabiola about her Vodou items, and Fabiola says, 'It is my life" (321). What does she mean by this? How is this idea shown throughout the novel? How is Vodou, and its philosophy, make up Fabiola's character? Go through the novel and find at least three examples to show how Vodou is a part of Fabiola's life, and how each example shows how it is a part of her.

Wrap this into a claim: what is the novel saying about the role of spirituality?

(see the answer keys)

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