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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. Which character is Marian having an affair with?

2. What does Brian want to talk about instead of baseball?

3. What kind of car is the man driving across the desert?

4. At what kind of restaurant does Marvin eat in chapter four?

5. What is the season in chapter three?

Short Essay Questions

1. How are Nick and Klara's lives different?

2. What do we find out about Nick's past in this section?

3. Why did sister Edgar stop hitting kids?

4. How does Marian react to Nick's fling with Donna?

5. Why does Nick say his mother likes Jackie Gleason so much?

6. Why does Hoover appreciate Truman's timing in the announcement of the Soviet bomb?

7. What does this section say about the Texas Highway Killer?

8. Why does Nick have his mother's surname instead of his father's?

9. Why does Mike think his mother should stay in New York?

10. Why does Marian say she takes heroin?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is Manx's role in the novel? What meaning does his character give the novel? How would the novel change if Manx was not a character in the novel?

Essay Topic 2

Examine the author's writing style. How would you describe the author's prose style? What kind of vocabulary does he use? What meaning does the author's style give to the story?

Essay Topic 3

How is the Texas Highway killing significant to the story? Why do you think the author does explore the killings and the murderer further?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 725 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample