I Also Wrote (US Authors) Trivia Quiz

Answer: Tender is the Night

F Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) is most famous for "The Great Gatsby", which documented the flamboyance and excess of the "Jazz Age".

Fitzgerald's other notable novels include "This Side of Paradise", 'The Last Tycoon", and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". "Tender is the Night" was Fitzgerald's final novel, completed during the darkest period of his life when his wife Zelda had been hospitalized for psychiatric issues; and it mirrored the difficulties in his own life.

Answer: Innocents Abroad

Mark Twain (1835-1910), the great American humorist, was born and died under the shadow of Halley's Comet. His days growing up in Hannibal, Missouri and his experience as a river pilot provided background for his great novels "Tom Sawyer", "Huckleberry Finn", and "Life on the Mississippi".

He had a series of novels about young boys switched in their youth, including "The Prince and the Pauper" and "Pudd'nhead Wilson".

His short stories include "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" and "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg".

He wrote several non-fiction travel books including "Roughing It", "A Tramp Abroad", and "Innocents Abroad".

Answer: Deerslayer

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) was one of the first American writers to achieve world-wide popularity. He is probably best known for his "Leatherstocking Tales", a series of novels about the Indian scout Natty Bumppo. These include "The Deerslayer", "The Last of the Mohicans", "The Pathfinder", "The Pioneers", and "The Prairie".

His novels were very popular with influential European writers and helped popularize some stereotyped views of early North America and the native population.

Answer: The Martian Chronicles

Ray Bradbury (1920-2019) was best known for his science fiction novels. His first successful novel, "The Martian Chronicles", described encounters with Martian aboriginals by colonizers fleeing Earth. Praise from British writer Christopher Isherwood was influential in its success.

Bradbury is best known for his novel "Fahrenheit 451", which described a future society that had outlawed books and burned them. Other stories by him include "The Illustrated Man" and "I Sing the Body Electric".

Answer: The Cardinal of the Kremlin

Tom Clancy (1947-2013) was noted for his military and political thrillers. His first novel, "The Hunt for Red October", described the defection of the captain of the most advanced Soviet submarine and the capture of the boat by Americans. The popularity of this book established Clancy as a popular novelist and led to a series of books about possible future military and political scenarios.

The most notable successor books include "Patriot Games", "The Cardinal of the Kremlin", "Clear and Present Danger", and "The Sum of All Fears". Ironically his 1994 book "Debt of Honor" described a scenario similar to the 9/11 attacks.

"The Cardinal of the Kremlin" described the efforts of the hero of many of his novels, Jack Ryan, to extract a highly placed spy from the Kremlin.

Answer: The Shawshank Redemption

Stephen King (1947-) is the pre-eminent American writer of horror and supernatural fiction. His first published novel, "Carrie", was the story of a high school student who developed telekinetic powers to revenge herself upon classmates. He followed that with "'Salem's Lot" and "The Shining".

He has written a continuing series of books labeled "The Dark Tower" about Roland, a lone gun-slinger in an alternate universe.

King has deviated from the horror genre at times. "11/22/63" was the story about a time-traveler who tries to prevent the assassination of John Kennedy. "The Shawshank Redemption" was the story of a man falsely imprisoned for murder who is forced to participate in a money laundering scheme while in prison before he successfully escapes.

Answer: The House of the Seven Gables

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) is most noted for his novels about early New England. It's probably fitting that he was born in Salem Massachusetts, since his most famous novel, "The Scarlet Letter", was set in Puritan New England. This is the well-known story of Hester Prynne, who had a daughter born out of an affair and struggled to create a life of dignity afterwards.

Hawthorne's other major works include "The House of the Seven Gables", "The Blithedale Romance", "The Marble Faun", and his collection of short stories "Twice-told Tales".

"The House of the Seven Gables" is the story of an old New England family and their ancestral home, with suggestions of the supernatural and witchcraft.

Answer: Daisy Miller

Henry James (1843-1916) was born in New York City, but later moved to England and became a British citizen. He is probably best known for his novella "The Turn of the Screw", one of the most analyzed and ambiguous ghost stories in the English language.

Many of his novels center on themes of social and marital interactions between emigre Americans and the English or other Europeans. These novels include "Daisy Miller", "The Portrait of a Lady", "The Ambassadors" and "The Wings of a Dove".

Answer: The Reivers

William Faulkner (1897-1962) was a Nobel Prize winner known for his novels of the fictional Yoknapatawpha county, modeled after his home county in Mississippi. His fourth novel, "The Sound and the Fury", is regarded by the Modern Library as one of the best English language novels of the 20th century. It centered on the decline of the Compson family, and was written from the viewpoints of four different members of the family.

Faulkner's novels "As I Lay Dying", "Light in August", and "Absalom, Absalom!" are also included in many critical lists of the best 20th century novels. Two of his later works, "A Fable" and "The Reivers", each won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Answer: Travels with Charley

John Steinbeck (1902-1968) was a Nobel Prize winning author, whose novels often dealt with lives of the poor and suffering. His most famous novel, "The Grapes of Wrath", described the life of the Joad family, driven from Oklahoma by the Dust Bowl to California, where they worke on farms under harsh conditions.

"Of Mice and Men" described George Milton and Lenny Small as they worked in California during the Depression. Other novels include "East of Eden", "Cannery Row", and Tortilla Flats". One of his last works, "Travels with Charley" described a final road trip with his poodle as Steinbeck wanted to see and experience America one final time.

Answer: For Whom the Bell Tolls

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was well known for his classic novels and adventurous lifestyle. He was seriously injured during World War I, enjoyed an extended stay in Europe where he became a bullfighting aficionado, fought in the Spanish Civil War, and later accompanied Allied troops as a journalist during the Normandy invasion.

His short novel "The Old Man and the Sea", the story of the efforts of the old Cuban fisherman Santiago to reel in a giant marlin, remains one of his more popular books. "A Farewell to Arms" was based on his experience as an ambulance driver in WWI. "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is based on his experiences in the Spanish Civil War. "The Sun Also Rises" is his paean to bullfighting in Pamplona. "To Have and Have Not" is the story of a fishing boat captain, another of Hemingway's loves.

Answer: The Bluest Eye

Toni Morrison (1831-2019) was an influential African American author who was awarded the Nobel Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. After graduating from Howard University, she became a college professor and later an editor at Random House, where she introduced works by black authors to a larger audience.

Her first novel, "The Bluest Eye", describes a young African American girl growing up in Morrison's hometown, who was regarded as ugly and desired the bluest eyes possible as a way of curing her inferiority complex. This was followed by "Sula", "The Song of Solomon", and "Tar Baby".

Her most distinguished novels were the Beloved trilogy published between 1987 and 1997: "Beloved", "Jazz", and "Paradise".

Answer: Death Comes for the Archbishop

Willa Cather (1873-1947) was noted for her novels about frontier life on the American Prairie. Cather grew up in the midwestern state of Nebraska, which would influence her writing even after she moved to New York City.

Her early novels are classified as the Prairie novels "Oh Pioneers!", "The Song of the Lark", and My Antonia". Her first masterpiece, "My Antonia", was the story of a young orphan boy and the eldest daughter of Bohemian immigrants, who settle into the open prairie land.

Her later book "Death Comes for the Archbishop" described the attempts of a Catholic bishop and priest to establish a diocese in the New Mexico Territory.

Answer: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

Tom Wolfe (1930-2018) was an American author and journalist, widely known for his association with the "New Journalism". His two most well-known books were "The Right Stuff" and "Bonfire of the Vanities". "The Right Stuff" was the story of the selection, training, and adventures of the men in the Mercury astronaut program. "Bonfire of the Vanities" was the story of ambition, greed, social class and politics in 1980's New York City.

Wolfe also published several collections of his essays, including "The Pump House Gang", "The Kandy-Colored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby", and "Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers".

He is credited with inventing several phrases, such as "radical chic", "the right stuff", "statusphere", and "the Me decade".

Answer: You Can't Go Home Again

Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938) wrote four important novels during his short life. "Look Homeward Angel" was a semi-autographical book about growing up in his hometown of Asheville, North Carolina. The thinly-disguised characterization of people from Asheville in the book forced Wolfe to live away from the city for eight years afterwards.

His next book, "Of Time and the River", was based on Wolfe's life in his twenties and thirties in New York. Ironically the residents of his hometown were upset again - for not being included.

Wolfe's last two novels, "The Web and the Rock" and "You Can't Go Home Again", were published after his death from tuberculosis.