Q 01/05

What does the prologue of The Secret History reveal at once, turning the usual murder mystery upside down?

A) Who the killers are

B) Who the detective is

C) That the victim survived

D) That the narrator is dead

Answer · why

A) Who the killers are

Who the killers are is settled on the first page, where the narrator admits that he and his friends murdered a classmate. The suspense lies in why, wh...

Q 02/05

The Secret History is credited with originating which literary subgenre, later a hit aesthetic on social media?

A) Nordic noir

B) Cottagecore

C) Dark academia

D) Southern Gothic

Answer · why

C) Dark academia

Dark academia mixes Gothic gloom with old libraries, tweed and candlelit study. The online trend first grew up around fans of this one novel, decades ...

Q 03/05

Which twentieth-century milestone is news to Henry Winter, the most learned student in The Secret History?

A) The fall of Saigon

B) The moon landing

C) The Kennedy assassination

D) The Watergate scandal

Answer · why

B) The moon landing

The moon landing comes as a surprise to Henry, a prodigy who reads Homer and Plato for pleasure. He lives so far from the modern world that the news n...

Q 04/05

Hampden College, the small elite school where The Secret History unfolds, lies in which New England state?

A) Connecticut

B) New Hampshire

C) Massachusetts

D) Vermont

Answer · why

D) Vermont

Vermont gives the novel its long, brutal winters. One of them nearly kills the narrator, who is too proud to tell his friends he has nowhere warm to s...

Q 05/05

In The Secret History, how are Charles and Camilla Macaulay, the inseparable pair of the Greek class, related?

A) First cousins

B) Husband and wife

C) Fraternal twins

D) Aunt and nephew

Answer · why

C) Fraternal twins

Fraternal twins and orphans, the Macaulays often host the group for dinner. Their bond is marked by a jealousy and protectiveness that grow more troub...