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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 is the name of Marcus's agent?

2. Which relative of Luther Caleb's did Marcus and Gahalowood go to interview?

3. What did Robert Quinn discover about his wife Tamara that shocked him?

4. What happened to the house at Goose Cove in the midst of Marcus's investigation?

5. What began to raise Luther's family's suspicions that something bad had happened to him?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did Harry tell Marcus about the importance of failure?

2. Why did Ernie Pinkas, the part-time Somerset librarian, ask Marcus to put his name in the acknowledgement section of his book?

3. What did Sylla Caleb, Luther's sister, tell Marcus and Gahalowood about when her family started to worry about Luther?

4. Where was Luther Caleb's body found and what did Gahalowood and Marcus think was strange about it?

5. Why was Tamara Quinn so upset that the note she stole from Harry's house that declares his love for Nola was stolen from her safe?

6. Why did Tamara Quinn tell her therapist that she is so mean to her daughter Jenny?

7. What shocking revelation did Chief Pratt confess to Gahalowood and Marcus when they questioned him at his house?

8. What did Sylla tell Marcus and Gahalowood about the effect Luther's beating had on him?

9. Why was the handwriting analysis of the writing on The Origin of Evil transcript that was buried with Nola so important and whose handwriting was it?

10. Why did Luther Caleb's father get so upset when he learned that the name of the girl who had disappeared was Nola Kellergan?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss Dicker's treatment of writing both as an art form and a business enterprise. Consider the interactions, decisions and dialogue of both Harry and Marcus, two famous writers, on this topic in forming your answer.

Essay Topic 2

Why does Harry title the manuscript The Origin of Evil, even though it is ostensibly a love story?

Essay Topic 3

Harry loves the house at Goose Cove, which he eventually buys, at least in part because he thinks it will be a perfect setting in which to write. What does the ruin of the house through arson symbolize? Discuss the evolving meanings of the house at Goose Cove from when Harry first moves in in 1975 to when Marcus decides to restore it at the novel's end.

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