Coffin Moon Quiz: Test Your Knowledge
Welcome to the Coffin Moon quiz! This 20-question test spans the entire novel, from Duane Minor's bar-room confrontations to Julia's dark transformation. You'll find 8 plot/sequence questions, 5 character motivation questions, 4 theme/symbol questions, and 3 synthesis questions. Mix of multiple-choice and short-answer formats. After you finish, check your answers with the key at the bottom.
Plot / Sequence Questions (8)
1. Who calls Duane Minor to tell him that Julia has been in another fight at school?
- A) Heidi Minor
- B) Principal Reed
- C) Joanne
- D) Detective Scoggins
2. What object does Duane Minor grab to smash the bikers' table and order them out of the Last Call Tavern?
- A) A baseball bat
- B) A fish bat
- C) A shotgun
- D) A crowbar
3. (Short answer) How does Joanne blackmail Duane Minor into cooperating with the Crooked Wheel bikers?
4. After Julia calls from her sleepover, what does Minor discover in his upstairs apartment?
- A) The apartment has been ransacked
- B) Heidi's mutilated body
- C) A note from Joanne
- D) A broken window only
5. (Short answer) What does Detective Scoggins reveal about John Varley's criminal history?
6. After Varley beats Minor nearly to death in the barn, how does Julia save her uncle's life?
- A) She calls an ambulance
- B) She forces him to drink her blood
- C) She turns him into a vampire
- D) She shoots Varley with a silver bullet
7. (Short answer) What is the "blood-calling" that Varley performs in the barn?
8. How does Varley finally heal the silver bullet wound that has been poisoning him?
- A) He drinks Johan's blood
- B) He kills and drinks his Maker's blood
- C) He feeds on a police officer
- D) He uses a magical salve
Character Motivation Questions (5)
9. Why does Julia punch a fellow student at school?
- A) The student insulted her mother
- B) The student cut in line
- C) The student pushed her
- D) The student stole her lunch
10. Why does Joanne agree to let the Crooked Wheel bikers deal drugs out of the bar?
- A) She wants to become rich
- B) She believes the bikers can help her terminally ill husband Ed
- C) She is forced by Varley
- D) She wants revenge on Minor
11. (Short answer) Why does Julia make a deal with Adeline at the Children's Museum?
12. (Short answer) After being turned into a vampire, why does Minor refuse to feed on humans?
13. Why does Johan kill the old man in the rest stop restroom?
- A) The old man attacked him
- B) He wanted to steal his wallet
- C) To prove his fealty to Varley
- D) He was under a blood-calling
Theme / Symbol Questions (4)
14. (Short answer) What does the "three good things" ritual represent for Minor and Julia?
15. (Short answer) What does the moon symbolize in the novel?
16. What does the Polaroid photograph of John Varley, showing a smoky, eyeless form, represent?
- A) A camera malfunction
- B) Varley's supernatural nature hidden from normal sight
- C) A threat from the Crooked Wheel
- D) Minor's drunken hallucination
17. What does the Children's Museum symbolize?
- A) A safe haven for orphans
- B) A trap of eternal hunger and loneliness
- C) A school for young vampires
- D) A portal to another world
Synthesis Questions (3)
18. (Short answer) Compare Minor's struggle with alcoholism to his later struggle with vampiric hunger.
19. (Short answer) How does the theme of revenge differ between Minor and Julia's approaches?
20. (Short answer) In the final chapter, Minor reads Heidi's manuscript instead of taking revenge or succumbing to hunger. What does this choice suggest about his character arc?
Answer Key
1. B) Principal Reed
Chapter 1 confirms Reed calls Minor after the fight.
2. B) A fish bat
In Chapter 3, Minor grabs a fish bat to smash the bikers' table.
3. Joanne threatens to expose Minor's secret past—the burglars he beat and buried with her help—to Heidi and the police.
Chapter 4 outlines the blackmail.
4. B) Heidi's mutilated body
Chapter 7 ends with Minor opening the bedroom door and finding her body.
5. Scoggins reveals Varley was arrested in 1931 for assault, escaped, killed a police officer, and disappeared—and his unsolved 1931 murders match the current killings.
Chapter 14 provides this information.
6. C) She turns him into a vampire
In Chapter 37, Julia bends to his throat and her teeth rise in the moonlight; later Minor finds bite marks on his neck and realizes he has been turned.
7. A psychic command sent through blood that orders all nearby vampires to hunt and kill Duane Minor and the girl with him.
Chapter 33 describes Varley performing the blood-calling.
8. B) He kills and drinks his Maker's blood
In Chapter 41, Varley defeats his Maker and drinks his blood, which heals the silver wound.
9. B) The student cut in line
Chapter 1: Principal Reed explains Julia punched a student for cutting in line.
10. B) She believes the bikers can help her terminally ill husband Ed
Chapter 4: Joanne says the bikers work for someone who can help Ed, and she threatens Minor to cooperate.
11. Julia wants the power to confront and kill John Varley. She trades her humanity (eventually becoming one of Adeline's starving children) for that chance.
Chapter 22 details the deal.
12. Minor fears returning to the killer self he became after beating two burglars. He vowed not to become a monster like Varley.
Chapter 30 shows his guilt about those murders; Chapter 46 shows him refusing to feed.
13. C) To prove his fealty to Varley
Chapter 20: Varley asks for a token of loyalty, and Johan stabs the old man to death.
14. It represents using memory as an anchor against despair and loss. Minor and Julia list three good things each day to hold on to hope.
Chapter 25 and Chapter 30 show the ritual.
15. The moon symbolizes transformation, primal urges, and the supernatural awakening of the vampires. Julia's teeth rise in the moonlight.
Common motif in vampire fiction; explicitly referenced in chapter titles and Chapter 37.
16. B) Varley's supernatural nature hidden from normal sight
Chapter 10: The Polaroid shows Varley as a smoky, eyeless form, which Minor recognizes as anomalous.
17. B) A trap of eternal hunger and loneliness
Chapter 22: Adeline has turned 36 children but cannot kill them or let them go; they starve. The museum is a prison of undeath.
18. Both are struggles against destructive, addictive urges. Minor relapsed on alcohol after Heidi's death; as a vampire, he fights the hunger for human blood. Each requires willpower and a moral code not to harm others.
Minor's alcoholism is a theme throughout; his vampiric hunger is described in Chapter 46 as "this need inside him like some animal taking up residence."
19. Julia pursues revenge unconditionally, making a vampire deal and becoming a killer. Minor hesitates, haunted by past violence, and ultimately chooses not to kill Varley himself (Julia does it) and then refuses to feed his hunger. Minor's revenge is tempered by guilt and a desire to remain human.
Julia's actions in Chapter 22 and final confrontation; Minor's refusal in Chapter 46.
20. It suggests Minor chooses memory, love, and reflection over blind revenge or self-destruction. By reading Heidi's final story, he honours her life and his own history, seeking meaning rather than further violence. He still faces a choice, but this act shows he is leaning toward redemption.
Chapter 46 ends with Minor starting to read the manuscript after saying, "There's a choice to be made."
For more in-depth discussion, visit the Coffin Moon page, explore questions and answers, or read the ending explained.