Larry's Party Trivia Quiz

Answer: A Harris tweed jacket

Larry realises the jacket belongs to someone else when he puts his hand in the pocket and notices it is empty, and that the sleeves are longer. The jacket also has leather buttons and is more expensive and of better quality than his own jacket, which he wears to college every day.

Although he enjoys the feel of the jacket at first, he feels guilty about wearing it in case someone finds out it was stolen, and takes it off and stuffs it in a bin.

Answer: England

Larry's parents, Stu and Dot, are English and originally from Lancashire. While Larry works as a florist, his father makes interiors for coaches and other vehicles, and is disappointed at what he sees as an effeminate choice of career for his son. He and Dot emigrated to Canada after Dot accidentally poisoned her mother-in-law with preserved runner beans.

They give Larry and Dorrie a package tour of England as a wedding present, as they did with Larry's sister Midge and her husband (who later came out as gay) and the party travel from the Pennines to Land's End, before ending the tour in London for a few days.

While in London, the party visit Hampton Court and Larry gets lost in the maze there. It is here that his passion for mazes begins.

Answer: Order a bulldozer to destroy it

Flowerfolks, the company Larry works for, has been bought by an international chain, Flowercity, and Larry is now manager of the shop after the departure of Vivian Bondurant, his boss. Dorrie works as a saleswoman for Manitoba Motors, having been promoted, and earns a good salary, and wants to move to a more upmarket area; however, Larry wants to stay where they are because he is working on a maze in the garden. Larry also begins to fixate on learning new words and takes a pocket dictionary with him to work.

Although Dorrie does not mind Larry's maze obsession and even gives him a book about mazes for their first anniversary, she grows tired of it and worries that the maze in the garden will put buyers off. Eventually, Larry gets a call at work from Lucy, his neighbour, and comes home to find that a bulldozer - presumably ordered by Dorrie - has destroyed half of the maze, and he is so upset that he cannot speak and simply howls with despair.

Answer: Bill Herschel

After Larry and Dorrie divorce, he moves out and Bill, who has been his friend since their school days, helps him with the move and consoles Larry when he breaks down in tears during the move. Bill is Jewish and married to another former classmate, Heather McPhail. Unlike many of Larry's friends, Heather is not bitter towards Dorrie, though she is sympathetic to Larry. Larry, Bill and Heather go to their school reunion and meet up with some other old friends, including Nancy Oleson, a girl who fancied him in school. Megsy Hicks, the former class president and a former crush of Larry's, reads out a list of students who died.

After the meal, Megsy tries to shame Larry's table into mingling with the others, but Nancy rudely tells her to go away, making the rest of the group laugh. (Gene is a friend Larry made at college, Bruce is a rich businessman who commissions a maze from Larry, and Bob is a younger colleague of Larry's at Flowercity.)

Answer: Women saints

Beth is a Christian feminist and lecturer in Women's Studies whose chief interest is the lives of women saints, such as St Catherine of Siena and St Brigid. She jokingly calls herself a 'sponge on society'. Larry has quit his job at Flowercity and moved from Winnipeg to Illinois, having been requested to build a garden maze for a real estate magnate in Chicago. Bruce Sztuwark holds a farewell party and Larry's family and friends are in attendance; Stu has retired and Dot now volunteers in a soup kitchen at a church. Larry meets Beth at a reception hosted by the real estate magnate, Sumner Barnes. Beth's thesis is later published under the title of 'Happy Enough'.

Answer: A/mazing Space

Larry is both a designer and a constructor of mazes, with rich clients such as the president of a charitable foundation and a country and western singer in Tennessee (where Larry and Beth go on honeymoon), who commissions a Q-shaped maze in honour of his late wife Queenie. Larry does not count his garden maze in Winnipeg as his first official maze; it was the maze he made for Bruce Sztuwark that first got him attention, and the Barnes maze is his breakthrough maze in the USA.

He also builds a straw maze for a fair in Saskatchewan, a small Presbyterian Centre maze in New York, and a maze for the University of Colorado. Larry's old house in Winnipeg still has the remnants of the maze and Dorrie, who is now sales vice-president of a sportswear company, still lives there with their son Ryan and has had work done on the house.

Answer: False

It is Larry who gets the Guggenheim Fellowship, which enables them to travel around Europe and gives Larry an opportunity to visit and research various mazes, from Ireland to Spain. Beth had originally been hoping to invite Larry out to Europe with her to look at mazes while she did her research, but is angry when her application is rejected and even angrier when Larry's is accepted, despite him not having any published work. Larry offers to share the money with her and a month later, they travel to Ireland and see the Hollywood Stone.

While Larry visits mazes, Beth does research on the Annunciation, as per her original plan. They rent a flat in England and travel around the country, before visiting France for a fortnight with Ryan, now a teenager. Dorrie has a French boyfriend, Pierre, and Ryan's fluency in French helps Larry and Beth negotiate their way around the country.

Answer: Beth getting a job at the University of Sussex

Although Beth is trying to get pregnant, what sows the seed for the end of her and Larry's marriage is when she accepts a job offer from the University of Sussex as Head of Women's Studies. Larry is still living and working in the USA, then Canada, so he has to commute to England to spend time with Beth.

They go on holiday in France, but Beth is more concerned about trying to conceive. When Larry goes out for a meal with her in Southampton, she announces that she wants a divorce and has given up on the idea of having children.

As Larry now has no ties to Chicago, he moves back to Canada, relocating to Toronto.

Answer: Three weeks

Larry collapses at work and wakes up in hospital three weeks later, to discover that he has been in a coma. Neither of his ex-wives visit him (although they send flowers), but Charlotte Angus, his current girlfriend, and Ryan both come to visit him and Ryan regularly talks to him while he is unconscious. Charlotte is a widow; her husband died of prostate cancer and Larry had met her at a dinner party.

While Larry is recovering, he and Bill watch the Atlanta Olympics. After Larry gets out of hospital, Dot dies and he and Midge fly to Winnipeg to collect her ashes, which they plan to scatter at West Hawk Lake, where Stu's ashes had also been scattered.

Answer: True

Larry hosts a dinner party, with Charlotte's help, and as both Dorrie and Beth are in town, he invites them. The other guests are Samuel Alvero, a Spanish horticulturist and colleague of Larry; Midge and her husband Ian; and Garth McCord, one of Larry's clients, and his wife Marcia. Charlotte gives Larry advice about food and both of them are nervous, not least because both Larry's ex-wives will be there. Beth reveals she is seven months pregnant. During dinner, the conversation turns to husbands and Garth and Marcia argue. Samuel calls himself an 'invitado de piedra', or a 'stone guest', someone who is purely there to make up numbers.

He also mentions that his wife killed herself by taking an overdose, and Charlotte later reveals to him that Derek actually died of an overdose as well, but she does not want Larry to know.

After the party, a conversation between two unnamed parties takes place, with one party saying," I love you too. I've always loved you", and the other saying, "I love you too. I've been waiting. Only I didn't know I was waiting." The chapter ends with several answerphone messages from the guests; Charlotte is revealed to have gone home with Samuel. Beth also sends Larry a fax telling him she knew he had always loved Dorrie.

It is implied that Larry and Dorrie were the unnamed parties talking after the party.