Challenge 487
The Road Behind
In Mike Florian’s “Springtime, North Dakota”:
- Why might the toughs think that the bartender is not telling the truth about the police?
- We learn Marty’s name only when he meets Aaron and Angela. What might be the advantage in avoiding his name for so long?
- Why might it be significant that Marty is a Canadian?
- Why might Marty have found it easier to travel through the U.S. in going from Montreal to Calgary? Hint: remember the time as well as the geography.
- What is the irony in Marty’s two modes of transportation, the ones at the beginning and end of the story?
In E. L. Skip Knox’s “The Roadmaster”:
- The story is set in an alternate universe. Why not in ours? And what makes the peculiar features of the “Roadmaster” universe recognizable?
- Driver’s conversation with John is sometimes oblique but not obtuse. How does Driver’s manner of speaking make him seem trustworthy, even charming in a way?
- What, exactly, is pursuing John and Driver?
- What realization must John come to in order to defeat the menace?
- If the story is an allegory, what does it represent?
In Kristin LaFollette’s “November Baptism”:
- In the title, why might “November” be used rather than some other month?
- A baptism is a purification ritual, a kind of cleansing. Who and what are cleansed in the poem?
- The poem proceeds from reverie to dream. What transformation takes place?
In Jack Bragen’s “Culpable Obedience”:
- What is the most likely cause of the “Prince’s” overthrow?
- What is a “hypothetical crime”? Gladys Seymour alludes to it as a historical practice in the U.S. What might she be referring to?
- Why is the narrator, Byron, going to receive a decoration?
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