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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 occasion led Knapp to drink for the first time?

2. How does Knapp respond when her mother confronts her with the empty bottle?

3. What is the result of the gesture Knapp makes after the confrontation with her mother?

4. What are the two parts into which Knapp compartmentalizes her life?

5. What effect did alcohol have on Alex?

Short Essay Questions

1. How would Knapp fill her days when she was living by herself?

2. What confrontation do Knapp and her mother have after Knapp's father dies?

3. Describe Knapp's relationship with Roger.

4. What is Knapp's friend Abby's drinking driven by?

5. Describe the yearning that drove Knapp to drink.

6. What does Knapp tell her boss when she hobbles into work after dropping her friend's children?

7. How does Knapp's friend Elaine inadvertently help Knapp keep drinking?

8. What relationship does Knapp have with her readers when she writes for the Boston Phoenix?

9. How would Knapp feel whenever her glass was filled?

10. What is Knapp's mantra?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Knapp's memoir is a love story, but Knapp falls in love with a number of different men throughout the book. How does her relationship with alcohol parallel her relationships with men? Is she ever untrue to the bottle? Is she ever as desperate for a man as she is for the bottle? How do her relationships with men change as her relationship with alcohol changes?

Essay Topic 2

How does the theme of Knapp's split personality--or compartmentalized personality--develop throughout the book? Use specific examples from the chapters. Is she one person? Is she more than one person? What do each of the people inside of her want? Does she seem pathologically self-divided, or does her self-division seem natural?

Essay Topic 3

The book concludes with a moment of truth in which Knapp realizes that she can't keep drinking. What leads her to this realization? Was it a real revelation, or was it something that she was led to over time?

(see the answer keys)

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