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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. How does the novel gloss the term “johnnies”?

2. What interest rate is Gus promised?

3. What color of marble does Monkey Pants have?

4. How much moonshine does Fatty bring back from his cousin Gene?

5. Where had Fatty been incarcerated?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the dominant occupation of the women of Hemlock Row?

2. What injuries did Dodo sustain in being apprehended?

3. What ideas does Fatty consider and reject for getting Nate out of his establishment?

4. Why does Fatty turn to his cousin Gene for help with his dental needs?

5. Why did Moshe book the Afro-Cubans at his theatre?

6. Why does Fatty absent himself from Chona’s funeral?

7. How does Fatty typify the Lowgods?

8. Why does Dodo assign Monkey Pants his sobriquet?

9. Why is Fatty worried about Big Soap’s mother arriving in anger at his establishment?

10. Why does Doc dislike Gus?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the novel, some characters are given but one name, while others are given first- and surnames, and still others are accorded names and titles. What significance, if any, accrues to patterns of naming in the novel? If no significance accrues, what purpose might be served by the patterns of naming in the novel? How does The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store bear as much out?

Essay Topic 2

The novel comments repeatedly on the South, despite taking place in what is clearly the North. How is the South figured in the novel? What effect on the reader does that figuration have? How is it produced?

Essay Topic 3

Typically, an epigraph is expected to speak to or set the tone for the work it introduces. Does the epigraph of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, combined in the novel with its dedication, do so for the present novel? How or how not?

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