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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 do Keith Landry and his visitor talk about?

2. How does Keith Landry feel about the things offered to him?

3. What has Billy Marlon become since the last time Keith Landry saw him?

4. What does Cliff Baxter wonder about Keith Landry?

5. What does Keith Landry find in his mailbox in Chapter 8?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was Keith Landry's relationship with Cliff Baxter in high school?

2. Describe Annie's departure from Keith Landry's house.

3. What is Keith Landry's relationship with Billy Marlon?

4. What was Keith Landry's career before taking forced retirement?

5. Describe the relationship between Annie and Cliff Baxter.

6. How does the narrator describe the Porters' way of life?

7. Why does Keith Landry decide to leave town?

8. What is Cliff Baxter's relationship with Sherry Kolarik?

9. What is the role of infidelity in the Baxter household?

10. Describe the reunion between Jeffrey Porter and Keith Landry.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Who is the audience for Spencerville, and what are their expectations for a novel? Do you think Spencerville satisfies this audience? Would it satisfy readers who were used to other kinds of novels? What would a romance reader, or a literary fiction reader likely think of this book?

Essay Topic 2

Why doesn't Keith Landry urge Annie to remain married, and to work within the bond she had accepted, honoring the vows she once took? Put another way, what makes Annie's marriage to Cliff Baxter so contemptible that we wish, as readers, for it to end? Would there be a virtue to Annie remaining married?

Essay Topic 3

How American is Spencerville? What makes it American? What makes it something else? How does this novel embody Americanness?

(see the answer keys)

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