Part 1, Chapter 1

Questions

1. What's David doing at the beginning of the novel?
2. Where's Hella traveling?
3. Where did David meet Hella?
4. What did David tell Hella just before she left?
5. What does Hella decide in Spain?
6. What does David realize about himself when Hella decides she wants to marry him?
7. What's the big lie David tells Giovanni?
8. Where does David go with Joey during summer vacation?
9. How does David describe making love to Joey?
10. Why does David feel ashamed after having sex with Joey?
11. What lie does David tell Joey when they see each other at school?
12. What happened to David's mother when he was young?
13. What did David have nightmares about during childhood?
14. What happens when David tries to get his father to speak about his mother?
15. What starts the fight between Ellen and David's father?
16. What does David's father say about his son after the fight with Ellen?
17. What does David's father do that horrifies his son?
18. How does David think his father looks in the hospital?
19. What does David realize upon returning home from the hospital?
20. What does David realize in Joey's bed?

Answers

1. Standing at the window and drinking
2. America
3. A bar in St. Germain des Pres
4. That he loved her
5. She wants to marry David.
6. He's not to be trusted.
7. That he'd never slept with a man before
8. Joey's house in Brooklyn
9. He compares it to holding some rare, exhausted, nearly doomed bird that he had miraculously happened to find.
10. He realizes Joey is a boy.
11. That he's dating a girl
12. She passed away.
13. His mother's corpse
14. His father praises his mother.
15. David's father comes home drunk.
16. He wants David to grow up to be a man.
17. He appears naked in front of David.
18. Very old
19. He and his father will never really speak again.
20. He plans to never let himself be afraid again.