Death of the Author Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hallows

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling is the final volume in the 7-book series. The term, deathly hallows, refers to the three items which confer immortality if possessed by a single person. One is the invisibility cloak which Harry has used to good effect previously; the other two are the Elder Wand and the Resurrection Stone.

The book relates the quest to destroy the last 4 horcruxes (which house/protect a portion of a wizard's soul) and recover the deathly hallows to prevent Lord Voldemort from immortality.

Answer: New Mexico

Cather's book, published in 1927, tells the tale of two French Catholic priests trying to establish a mission in New Mexico shortly after the territory was ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo following the Mexican-American War.

The novel is narrated by Bishop Jean Marie Latour, who with his friend and vicar Father Joseph Vaillant, struggle against the culture and landscape of the new Territory. Both men embark on long journeys full of travails. Historical figures such as Kit Carson figure in the book as characters, and the history of the region is accurately portrayed.

Answer: Hercule Poirot

Hercule Poirot, Christie's egg-headed, mustachioed detective, features in the 1937 book. Christie was undoubtedly inspired to include Egypt as a setting following her travels with her archaeologist second husband, Max Mallowan. Of note, Christie penned a play entitled "Hidden Horizons" based on the "Death on the Nile" book but wrote Poirot out of the cast.

The book has been turned into two major motion pictures - in 1978 Peter Ustinov took on the Poirot role, and in 2022 Kenneth Branagh took his turn as the cerebral detective.

The incorrect answers for this question are characters who also solve mysteries in Christie novels.

Answer: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Marquez, known as "Gabo" in Colombia, published the novel in 1981. The book does not seek to discover who murdered Santiago Nasar, but rather it plumbs the reasons no one prevented the killing despite its inevitable occurrence. Marquez was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. When he died in 2014, the president of Colombia was quoted naming Marquez "the greatest Colombian who ever lived."

The authors presented as incorrect answers are also esteemed in their home countries - Llosa wrote "The Green House" and other books and was a candidate for the office of President in Peru but lost to Fujimora. Neto, a poet, served as the first president of Angola after independence from Portugal. The Greek writer, Rigas Feraios, was active in the uprising against the Ottoman Empire and in 1798 he was betrayed and murdered for his efforts.

Answer: The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

All of the possible answers are published works. "The 7 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle" was renamed simply by changing it to "The 71/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle" in an attempt to avoid confusion with the very popular book "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo" by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Turton's book is an unusual mystery combined with a time loop - the main character is stuck at Blackheath Manor, trying to solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle. Each day he awakens as a different person who was present at the slaying, replaying the events from that person's perspective.

He can only escape this "Groundhog Day" experience by solving the crime. This debut won Turton the 2018 Costa Book Award for Best First Novel.

Answer: Damaged portion of protagonist's brain

"The Dead Zone" was Stephen King's first book to crack the top ten bestseller list. It is also the first of his novels set in the fictional town of Castle Rock. The protagonist, Johnny Smith, awakens from a coma after 5 years and recognizes that he has a gift of clairvoyance.

When he cannot access information, he notes that it is stuck in "the dead zone" in his brain. Both the 1983 movie with Christopher Walken as Johnny and the television miniseries with Anthony Michael Hall in the role used a slightly different connotation for the term - in those depictions the "dead zone" refers to blind spots or dormant portions of his brain that are now reawakened.

The incorrect answers allude to other books by King.

Answer: Louisiana State Penitentiary

Sister Prejean was asked by her order to start corresponding with death row inmates, and she eventually became the spiritual advisor for Elmo Sonnier. Sonnier was convicted of a horrific rape and double murder, and eventually was executed in the electric chair. Prejean met with him often, and attended the execution. Since that time, she has served in a similar capacity with several other men on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. She has become a vocal opponent of the death penalty, while never excusing the crimes of the men to whom she ministers.

The book details Prejean's work and her arguments against the death penalty. It has been adapted into a movie (Susan Sarandon won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Prejean), an opera and a play. Louisiana State Penitentiary is commonly referred to as Angola; it is built on the grounds of the former Angola Plantation.

Answer: 1940s

Arthur Miller's tour de force premiered in February of 1949, with Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman, the salesman of the title. The themes of the play include the myth of the American Dream, the mutability of memory, and infidelity and its fallout. Miller had wanted to write a play involving a salesman for some time, but a chance encounter with a relative who worked as a traveling salesman spurred him to make the thought a reality.

In parallel with the play, Miller's uncle Manny committed suicide shortly after their encounter.

Answer: Leo Tolstoy

The novella was published in 1886. It is often assigned reading in medical schools, to inspire discussion of the need for compassionate care in the face of human suffering. In the novella, Ivan Ilyich Golovin is a wealthy judge who has lived what he believes is a "good life." When he is stricken ill, doctors offer no personal care and his family denies that he is dying.

He comes to question whether the striving for wealth and power really meant he was living a good life, in contrast to the life lived by his butler, Gerasim, who lives more mindfully and is more compassionate toward Ivan Ilyich.

Answer: Roland Barthes

Barthes postulates that the perspective of the reader is more important to the interpretation of a text than is plumbing the sources of a work in the author's life. Thus the "birth of the reader" is contrasted with the "death of the author." The essay was initially published in English in the American journal "Aspen" in 1967. Barthes was French; the essay appeared in a French journal the following year, 1968.