"Anansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman Trivia Quiz

Answer: False

In Chapter One, we learn that even though Charlie's nickname is Fat Charlie, he was only fat from shortly before the age of 10 to age 14. His dad gave him the nickname, and when Charlie's father gave a nickname, it stuck.

We also learn that, when Charlie was a kid, his father gave a neighborhood show dog the nickname "Goofy", which stuck, much to the frustration of its owners. The dog never won in another show after that.

Answer: He bit into a wax apple that was on display in a bowl.

On his first visit to Rosie's mother's house, he mistook a bowl of wax fruit for real fruit, and bit into an apple! Rosie's mother gave him a lecture on the cost of wax fruit and glared at him for the remainder of the visit.

Rosie and her mother (who resembles a "skeletal Eartha Kitt") are the same race as Charlie. The other two incidents never occurred.

Answer: bookkeeper

Fat Charlie is a bookkeeper in the accounts department of the Grahame Coats Agency, a talent agency. His boss, Grahame Coats, is fond of cliches and is not particularly likeable. Apparently he resembles an albino ferret. He has a habit of firing people just before their two-year anniversary with the company. Fat Charlie has been working there almost two years.

He does become a singer by the end of the book though!

Answer: heart attack while singing karaoke in a bar

Charlie's mother had been diagnosed with cancer, not his father. (She went into remission thanks to a hospital visit and serenade by Charlie's father, but later died in her sleep on her native island of St. Andrews.

Fat Charlie is understandably embarrassed by his father's undignified manner of dying: Mr. Nancy died of a heart attack while singing karaoke in a bar in Florida. The first song he sang was "What's New, Pussycat?" The second (and last song he ever sang) was "I Am What I Am". Mr. Nancy clutched a nearby woman's breast as he fell to the floor dying and pulled her top off!

Fat Charlie flies to Florida for the funeral. He learns from his old neighbor, Mrs. Higgler, that his father was actually the African spider-god Anansi, and also that he has a brother named Spider.

The love of karaoke seems to run in the Nancy family: Fat Charlie and Spider both sing karaoke at other times in the book.

Answer: Tells a spider that he is looking for his brother.

After the funeral, Mrs. Higgler tells Fat Charlie that he can contact his brother any time by "telling it to a spider". Fat Charlie is sceptical, but he tries it anyway the next time he sees a spider. Sure enough, it works!

Spider seems to have inherited all the charm, charisma and magic from Anansi that Charlie lacks. He is extremely charming and persuasive.

Answer: Grahame Coats has been stealing money from his clients.

After a night of karaoke and wild partying, Fat Charlie is too hung over to go to work, so Spider takes Charlie's place at work while Charlie is passed out. Even though the two of them don't look alike, somehow Spider is able to pass himself off as Fat Charlie at work with no one the wiser.

Spider does some poking around on the computer and discovers some financial irregularities involving some mysterious Cayman Islands accounts. He correctly surmises that Grahame Coats has been embezzling from his clients, particularly Maeve Livingstone, the widow of a famous entertainer.

When Grahame Coats calls Spider/Charlie into his office to fire him, Spider confronts Grahame Coats about the Cayman accounts. That afternoon, the clueless Fat Charlie returns to work and is flabbergasted when Coats offers him two weeks off and 2000 Pounds!

Answer: At a bar, with her friends.

The night of Spider and Charlie's reunion, they seek, at Spider's suggestion, "wine, women and song, not necessarily in that order". They get drunk on a special wine, then they go to some bars and pick up a group of women who are out celebrating a friend's birthday, then they go to a karaoke bar.

The next morning, Fat Charlie wakes up with a hangover and finds himself in bed with a naked Daisy.

Later on, we learn that Daisy is also known as Detective Constable Day. She is called in to investigate the financial irregularities at the Grahame Coats Agency. Grahame Coats has done his best to frame Fat Charlie. Daisy is one of the police officers who comes to Charlie's home to arrest him.

Answer: Blogging about the royal family of England

Daisy's flatmate, Carol, gets her thrills from writing a blog impersonating a member of the Royal Family: "young, male, and out-of-control". Apparently there have been arguments in the press as to whether it is genuine or not. We learn this in Chapter 7.

Karaoke is more of a Nancy family hobby and is not a particularly unusual one.
Rosie's mother is the collector of wax fruit.
Nobody in the book is a ghost-hunter, although there are some ghosts who appear later in the book.

Answer: False

Fat Charlie's initial excitement at being reunited with his long-lost brother quickly turns to annoyance when Spider turns his tiny spare storage room into a palatial suite (complete with waterfall, fireplace and hammock) and eats his steak, then downright hatred when Spider seduces Rosie and gets Fat Charlie fired and arrested.

Answer: Under the Boardwalk

In Chapter 4, we learn that Fat Charlie thought "Under the Boardwalk" was the greatest song in the world when he was 13. This is the song that Spider chooses to sing at karaoke on the night of their reunion. Fat Charlie then tries to sing "Unforgettable", but passes out.

"Under the Boardwalk" saves Charlie's life later in the book when Grahame Coats holds Daisy at gunpoint in the hotel restaurant in St. Andrews. Charlie gets up to sing this song with the band and proposes to Daisy. Various restaurant employees run to the table and pull Daisy to her feet, so Grahame has no choice but to let her go or risk causing a scene.

"What's New Pussycat?" and "I Am What I Am" are the last two karaoke songs that Mr. Nancy sings on the night he dies.

Answer: Bird-Woman

Fed up with Spider and his mischief, Fat Charlie flies to Florida and enlists the help of Mrs. Higgler and the three other old ladies. They perform a ritual ceremony that sends Fat Charlie to a place with lots of caves, where he meets several of the old African animal deities. He first appeals to Lion, then Elephant, then Snake, then Tiger, then Hyena, then Monkey, then Rhinoceros, then Crocodile. None of them will help him, because at one time or another, all have been victims of Anansi's tricks.

Finally, Bird-Woman consents to help him, in return for something from Charlie. Charlie trades Anansi's bloodline for a feather to seal the deal.

Answer: Mrs. Dunwiddy

This explains why Spider and Fat Charlie are both so terrified of Mrs. Louella Dunwiddy! Hints are dropped in various chapters.

In Chapter 2, we learn that Fat Charlie has been terrified her ever since he was a child, when he followed a lost tennis ball into her yard and broke one of her lawn ornaments.

In Chapter 11, Fat Charlie returns to Florida to get help from the four old ladies in breaking the bargain with Bird Woman. He arrives to find Mrs. Dunwiddy on her deathbed. She is 104. He asks Mrs. Dunwiddy for the feather, and she tells him that Callyanne Higgler has the feather. Mrs. Higgler is now in St. Andrews.

Fat Charlie goes to St. Andrews to find Mrs. Higgler and the feather. Mrs Higgler does another ritual with her niece and nephew and sends Fat Charlie back to the weird twilight land with the cliffs.

There he finds Spider, and tells him, "You used to be a part of me." Mrs Dunwiddy thought that she had removed the magic part of Charlie when she split them apart, but she "never understood what she was doing". Charlie goes on to say, "We're more like two halves of a starfish. You grew up into a whole person, and so did I."

Answer: He hits her on the head with a hammer and kills her.

Tired of getting the runaround from Grahame Coats regarding her late husband's estate, she shows up at his office and confronts him. Coats first tries to pin the blame on Charlie, but Maeve isn't buying it. Then he offers her 4.5 million pounds cash. Maeve agrees.

Coats lures her into his secret treasure cave behind the bookcase, then hits her on the head with a hammer.

Maeve does not realize she is dead right away: she can see and hear, but no one can see or hear her. She can't seem to leave the room either. It's up to her late husband Morris (or his voice, anyway) to explain to her that she is dead.

Once Fat Charlie shows Daisy the secret door and the locksmith opens it, Maeve is free to leave. Morris again tells her that it's time to cross over to the other side, but Maeve tells him she has a few things to do first, mainly involving revenge on Grahame Coats.

Answer: The one with the lime

On his first night in St. Andrews, Fat Charlie is handed a lime by a cab driver. He checks into the hotel still carrying the lime. For some reason, this makes an impression on the locals, and by the next morning, everyone on the island knows him as "the man with the lime", "the Englishman with the lime", or "the one with the lime".

They keep asking him, "Where is your lime?", so he starts carrying it around with him.

Answer: All of these

It's an all-around happy ending: just about everyone gets what they want (and who they want) in the end.

Maeve is reunited with Morris in the afterlife, and here on earth, Spider ends up with Rosie and Charlie ends up with Daisy. Charlie becomes a singer and has a son with Daisy. Rosie's mother recovers from the tiger attack and lives on to annoy Spider.