John Boyne's "Ladder To The Sky" Quiz

Answer: Ambition

This story compares ambition to a LITERAL ladder to the sky. The moral of the story is: ambition is a pointless, self-defeating exercise. Especially for people like Maurice, who spend their lives trying to achieve something - and creating so much destruction along the way.

Answer: False

This tale, as well as often being written in the third-person, has several narrators, including Erich Ackermann - the German Cambridge teacher with a dark secret - who befriends Maurice and Maurice's late wife Edith - narrating from an unorthodox viewpoint. Then finally, there is the atrocious Maurice himself.

Answer: Germany

Erich was a non-combat army clerk during WW2, so he had no blood on his hands (or so we think). He has had some success as an author, before joining Cambridge University as an English teacher. In 1988 he's back in his native Berlin (West Berlin - the famous Berlin Wall still exists) doing a book tour.

Then he meets young Maurice Swift, who also wants to be an author. Maurice is an English waiter who recognises Erich, and says he's a big fan. Erich develops a crush on this young man straight away.

He offers him a job as his assistant. Erich has been asked to give speeches in West Berlin, New York, Madrid, Rome and Paris. If this young man comes along and organises Erich's flights, hotels, etc, he will be well paid. But as it turns out, money is not what motivates Maurice.

Answer: Gore Vidal

After the success of Maurice's latest book, "The Two Germans", he and Dash Hardy (another homosexual author Maurice is manipulating) travel together a lot. Maurice knows Dash has a crush on him and uses him to get contacts in the publishing industry. Maurice himself is not really into men - or women - he just uses his good looks to his advantage.

He is very manipulative. For example, he stole the idea for "The Two Germans" from Erich Ackermann. Before WW2 broke out, Erich told the SS a friend of his was about to help his Jewish girlfriend and her family escape The Reich.

They were all shot outside their home. Erich felt terrible for years. Decades later, he thought Maurice was a good friend, and told him everything. Big mistake. Once the world learned what actually inspired Maurice Swift's new novel, Erich is ruined. Unemployed and friendless, he eventually shoots himself. Maurice and Dash stay with Gore for a few days in Italy. Maurice sneaks into poor Gore's room one night, hoping to "influence" Gore into helping his career, too. Gore is not impressed, and is very angry the next morning over breakfast. Maurice leaves Italy shortly after. Without Dash.

Answer: He hangs himself.

Maurice and his wife Edith are celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary in a restaurant in England one night. Then Dash approaches them from out of the blue. He thought Maurice would be pleased to see him, but Maurice all but tells him to go away. Edith is appalled, and even more so later when she learns poor Dash has hanged himself. He was lonelier than anyone had guessed.

Answer: False

She teaches creative writing at a nearby university. She is the sole-breadwinner; Maurice spends his days "working on his next novel". He never seems to get very far. Edith's student Nathan has a crush on her. He has drinks with her one day. She goes back with him to his flat. But then she stops herself. She is married to Maurice - she will be faithful. She regretfully leaves.

Answer: He has stolen her work.

Not only that, he actually raped the poor woman months beforehand. She let it go. But later, she learns he has been copying her own stories-in-progress off her laptop for months. When she confronts him on the top floor of their home about his plagiarism, he turns pale.

He tries to convince his wife everyone does it. She storms off down the stairs, but trips and falls. Maurice only has to reach out his hand to save her...but he lets her fall. She falls a long way down, and hits her head. So his secret is safe. Is transpires that all this time Edith has been narrating from a hospital bed - in a coma. No one can hear her.

Answer: False

On the same day Maurice sent poor Edith into her coma, Edith's slightly-mad sister Rebecca had visited. She confessed everything to her sister. She is getting a divorce. But, so the courts will award her custody of their child, she is going to frame Robert for child porn.

She boasts to Edith about how she will sneak into Robert's flat, and copy horrible files off the internet onto his laptop (she'd memorized his password while they were still together). Edith is horrified! Rebecca leaves, laughing. Unfortunately Edith does not have the opportunity to tell anyone.

She can hear people by her hospital bed speak to her. But she cannot respond. Maurice eventually whispers in her ear he has asked the doctors to terminate her life support. So poor Robert goes to prison after all. And Maurice's secrets are safe...

Answer: Asthma attack

At least that's the official story. The unofficial story (i.e the truth) is the poor 13-year old stumbled across his father's work one day. He'd accessed Maurice's laptop, and discovered his father had been hiding two overwhelming secrets. Firstly, everything he's ever published was stolen from other writers - including Maurice's late wife Edith (Edith was not Daniels' mother; Maurice paid another woman in New York to artificially bear him a child after he'd killed Edith). Secondly, he'd deliberately let his poor wife fall to her death. Nowadays Maurice runs his own magazine.

He is making a living, but still frustrated that nothing he writes gets nominated for "The Prize". He pinched clients' ideas, and sent them Rejection Slips. Maurice cannot believe it when his shocked son exclaims he will tell everyone the truth.

The poor boy is devastated. He looked up to his old man so much! Suddenly, he starts gasping. He is having an attack. He signals to his father to run and grab an inhaler. Maurice just stands there. About five minutes later - his secrets are safe once more.

Answer: He gets drunk and confesses all.

Now living back in England, Maurice is a millionaire. He sold his magazine for a seven-figure amount. But he is far from happy - now he has no way of stealing writers' ideas. So he visits pubs and gets drunk every day. The "accidental" death of his son, he keeps trying to forget. (But he's more frustrated about not being able to publish, thus never being able to win The Prize.) Then one day he's contacted by a young man called Theo.

Theo claims to be a student. Theo looks so similar to Daniel, it's uncanny! Same hairdo, same clothes, it's incredible.

Theo eventually earns Maurice's trust. Over the next few months (and booze) Maurice miserably confesses all his dark deeds to Theo. His manipulation of Erich, Dash, and co. Murdering Edith and Daniel to protect his secrets. Stealing ideas sent to his New York magazine, etc.

Theo smiles. Later, it turns out the young man had been recording every single word Maurice said. Theo is related to the late Erich Ackermann, and Erich's family has wanted revenge for years. (That's why Theo worked so hard to find out so much about the late Daniel, including his appearance.) Finally! Maurice will spend the rest of his life in jail.

He is not looking so smug any more, waking every morning in a dirty smelly jail cell, no chance of a drink.