Constance Quiz: 20 Questions About the Novel

Plot and Sequence Questions

1. What event first alerts Con that she is a clone, not the original?

   • A. She wakes with missing tattoos and piercings.
   • B. She meets Detective Clarke.
   • C. She finds her original’s body on a farm.
   • D. She sees another Constance emerge from the dark.

2. Who shoots and kills Brooke Fenton?

   • A. Franklin Butler
   • B. Vernon Gaddis
   • C. Cabigail (the clone pretending to be Con)
   • D. Con herself

3. In what year does the main story begin? (Short answer)

4. Where does Con first meet her husband, Levi Greer?

   • A. At a police station
   • B. At his home in Virginia
   • C. Inside a Palingenesis clinic
   • D. On a farm in Buffum

5. What does Con discover inside the garage of the Belmont town house?

   • A. A new clone of Zhi
   • B. Four blue body bags containing murdered men
   • C. Her original’s guitar and notebooks
   • D. A hidden laboratory

6. What is the name of the anti-cloning protest group that pursues Con? (Short answer)

7. How does the original Abigail Stickling die?

   • A. She is killed by rDogs.
   • B. She drinks poisoned tea willingly.
   • C. She jumps from a height.
   • D. She is shot by Cabigail.

8. What does Con choose to do at the end of the novel?

   • A. Agree to be cloned again
   • B. Perform one song at a party and reject immortality technology
   • C. Move to Seoul to find another Abigail clone
   • D. Become the new CEO of Palingenesis

Character Motivation Questions

1. Why does Laleh Askari tamper with Con’s lockout and later help her escape?

   • A. She is secretly paid by Vernon Gaddis.
   • B. She feels guilty for taking money to clone her dying brother.
   • C. She is Con’s biological sister.
   • D. She wants to steal the research in Con’s head.

2. What is Cabigail’s primary reason for impersonating the original Constance for six months?

   • A. To steal Con’s identity for wealth
   • B. To frame Levi Greer for the murder
   • C. To infiltrate the Children of Adam
   • D. To reunite with Zhi

3. Why does Con reject Vernon Gaddis’s offer of sanctuary early in the book?

   • A. She distrusts him and wants to find out how her original died.
   • B. She prefers to stay with her friend Kala.
   • C. She plans to join the Children of Adam.
   • D. She intends to leave the country permanently.

4. What was the name of Con’s band that she formed with Zhi? (Short answer)

5. Why does Detective Darius Clarke treat Con with contempt during their first meeting?

   • A. He believes clones are legal property, not people.
   • B. He thinks she murdered her original.
   • C. He is a member of the Children of Adam.
   • D. He is jealous of her musical career.

Theme and Symbol Questions

1. In Chapter 1, Con rescues a purple artificial Christmas tree. What does this act symbolize?

   • A. Her desperate attempt to find happiness despite deep depression
   • B. Her renewed religious faith
   • C. Her love of nature and environmentalism
   • D. Her rejection of holiday traditions

2. What do the tattoos on Con’s arm represent?

   • A. Her family history and personal identity
   • B. Her song lyrics and musical achievements
   • C. Her membership in a street gang
   • D. Her clone serial number

3. What word does Con use for a group of ravens, which she applies to the protesters outside Palingenesis? (Short answer)

4. In the novel, “lag” refers to the gap between Con’s creation and the original’s memories. What does this lag symbolize?

   • A. The identity crisis a clone faces when reconciling two sets of experiences
   • B. The physical delay in her walking after revival
   • C. The time it takes for communication to travel
   • D. The changing of seasons in Virginia

Synthesis Questions

1. The novel challenges a simple binary view of identity. Based on the events, how does Con come to see herself? (Short answer; 2–3 sentences)

2. Which Supreme Court ruling at the end of the book directly affects clone personhood?

   • A. Gaddis v. Virginia
   • B. Roe v. Wade
   • C. Brown v. Board of Education
   • D. Marbury v. Madison

3. Why does Con press the self-destruct button on the mountain compound instead of running? (Short answer; 2–3 sentences)

Answer Key with Explanations

1. A. In Chapter 4, Con awakens from a refresh procedure to find her tattoos and piercings missing, confirming that she is a clone whose original died eighteen months earlier.

2. C. In Chapter 28, the clone called Cabigail (actually a clone of Abigail Stickling) murders Fenton to protect her secrets and frame Butler.

3. 2038. The first chapter opens on “Christmas morning 2038.”

4. B. Con drives to Virginia and meets Levi Greer at his home in Chapter 15.

5. B. In Chapter 24, Con finds four blue body bags inside the garage, including the pockmark‑faced man who had been chasing her.

6. Children of Adam. This anti‑cloning group appears throughout, protesting outside Palingenesis and later holding Con captive.

7. B. In Chapter 31, Cabigail serves poisoned tea to Abigail, who accepts her death willingly, then is incinerated.

8. B. In Chapter 35, Con performs one song at a party and refuses to clone herself again, rejecting immortality technology.

9. B. Laleh confesses in Chapter 18 that she tampered with Con’s lockout in exchange for money to clone her dying brother and helps Con out of guilt.

10. B. Cabigail explains in Chapter 30 that she lived with Levi Greer for six months to frame him for the original’s murder.

11. A. In Chapter 10, Con refuses Gaddis’s offer because she is determined to learn the truth about her original’s death and her own past.

12. Awaken the Ghosts. The band is named in Chapter 3 when Con remembers forming it with Zhi.

13. A. In Chapter 9, Clarke calls Con a “Gucci” (slur for a clone) and demands her GPS data, revealing his belief that clones are property, not people.

14. A. The tree rescue highlights Con’s low emotional state and her struggle to find meaning, as the tree fails to lift her depression.

15. A. In Chapter 3, Con’s tattoo sleeve encodes her family history, serving as a personal archive of her identity.

16. An unkindness. In Chapter 2, Con recalls Gamma Jol’s term for a group of ravens and applies it to the protesters.

17. A. Throughout the book, lag forces Con to reconcile her own experiences with the original’s missing eighteen months, creating an identity crisis.

18. Con learns that she is neither simply the original nor a separate person; she must accept both continuity and difference. As she says in Chapter 28, “complexity wasn’t necessarily something to fear.” Her identity becomes a continuum, not a binary choice.

19. A. In Chapter 35, Vernon Gaddis reports that the Supreme Court has ruled in Gaddis v. Virginia, granting clones personhood.

20. Con chooses to destroy the laboratory and the immortality research to prevent it from being misused. She refuses to run from the consequences, stating that she has earned the right to face the end on her own terms (Chapter 34).

For more details on the story, check out the main book page, the questions and answers, or the ending explained.