Southern Man by Greg Iles: Full Book Quiz
Quiz Questions
Plot and Sequence (Questions 1–8)
-
What event directly precedes the first arson of Tranquility mansion?
- A) The Mission Hill massacre
- B) The Memphis police shooting
- C) The election of a Black mayor in Bienville
- D) The Bastard Sons of the Confederacy protest
-
List the following fires in the order they occur in the novel:
- Arcadia mansion
- Daughters of Egypt Church
- Pencarrow plantation
- Tranquility mansion (Short answer)
-
Who shoots and kills Mayor Doc Berry?
- A) Sheriff Buck Tarlton
- B) Deputy Kenneth LeJay
- C) Donny Kilmer
- D) Bobby White
-
What happens to Kendrick Washington during his speech at the Battery Row rally?
- A) He is arrested by the National Guard
- B) He is assassinated by Donny Kilmer
- C) He is stabbed by a white attacker
- D) He is rescued by Daniel Kelly
-
What is the name of Shot Barlow's militia group? (Short answer)
-
Who drowns Charlot Dufort?
- A) Tommy Russo
- B) Bobby White
- C) Corey Evers
- D) Amadu
-
What is the cause of Peggy Cage's death?
- A) A stroke
- B) Multiple myeloma
- C) A gunshot wound
- D) Old age
-
How does Bobby White die?
- A) He escapes to Mexico
- B) He is killed in the Pencarrow grenade blast
- C) He is shot by Daniel Kelly
- D) He dies of cancer
Character Motivation (Questions 9–13)
-
What is Bobby White's stated reason for running for president?
- A) To avenge his grandfather's murder
- B) To prevent a 2027 nuclear crisis
- C) Because he is blackmailed by the Poker Club
- D) To gain personal wealth and power
-
Why does Penn Cage agree to defend Kendrick Washington on arson charges?
- A) He needs a high‑profile case
- B) He believes the charges are false and wants justice
- C) Nadine Sullivan pressures him
- D) He is threatened by Sheriff Tarlton
-
What causes Ray Ransom to abandon nonviolent protest and turn to armed retaliation?
- A) His past in the Black Panther Party
- B) The murder of Mayor Doc Berry
- C) The lynching of Ebony Swan
- D) A direct provocation from Shot Barlow
-
What is Charles Dufort's primary goal in supporting Bobby White?
- A) To gain control of the state government
- B) To protect his family's secrets and legacy
- C) To stop the arsons of plantation homes
- D) To help his son Charlot pay off debts
-
Why does Martyn Black start the series of antebellum mansion fires?
- A) As a political statement for racial justice
- B) To cover up insurance fraud and collect his mother's life insurance
- C) To help Bobby White's presidential campaign
- D) Because he is a member of the Bastard Sons of the Confederacy
Theme and Symbol (Questions 14–17)
-
What does the recurring bear symbolize in the novel?
- A) The strength of the Southern landscape
- B) Mortality and fate
- C) White racial panic
- D) Political ambition
-
The epigraphs by William Alexander Percy and Walker Percy emphasize which central conflict?
- A) The importance of Southern honor
- B) The struggle between justice and entrenched bigotry
- C) The futility of moral resistance
- D) The inevitable defeat of the South
-
Niobe Pencarrow's choice to "disappear into whiteness" primarily represents:
- A) The triumph of white supremacy
- B) The erasure of Black identity to survive
- C) The freedom of racial passing
- D) The tragedy of miscegenation
-
In the novel, "white panic" is best described as:
- A) A rational fear of crime
- B) A political strategy to exploit racial anxiety
- C) An irrational but harmless emotion
- D) A media‑driven hoax
Synthesis (Questions 18–20)
-
How does the novel connect the mass lynchings of 1861 to the modern racial violence in Bienville? (Short answer)
-
Compare the motivations of Bobby White and Penn Cage in their respective actions throughout the story. (Short answer)
-
What does the title Southern Man suggest about the novel's central themes? (Short answer)
Answer Key
1. A) The Mission Hill massacre is the immediate trigger for the Bastard Sons' arsons, as stated in Chapter 2 of the novel.
2. Tranquility, Arcadia, Daughters of Egypt Church, Pencarrow. (Tranquility burns in Chapter 2, Arcadia in Chapter 19, Daughters of Egypt in Chapter 31, Pencarrow in Chapter 75.)
3. B) Deputy Kenneth LeJay shoots Doc Berry while Doc is trying to save a wounded boy. (Chapter 51)
4. B) Donny Kilmer assassinates Kendrick Washington from the water tower. (Chapter 108)
5. The Poison Springs Provisionals (PSP). (Chapter 112)
6. C) Corey Evers drowns Charlot in a creek after a struggle over blackmail photos. (Chapter 47)
7. A) Peggy Cage dies from a stroke. (Chapter 11)
8. B) Bobby White dies in the grenade blast at the Pencarrow slave quarters. (Chapter 121–122, Epilogue)
9. B) Bobby tells Penn that his presidential ambition is driven by a vision of a 2027 nuclear crisis only he can prevent. (Chapter 95)
10. B) Penn believes Kendrick is falsely accused and, despite his terminal illness, feels compelled to seek justice. (Chapter 40)
11. B) The murder of Doc Berry, a beloved Black mayor, pushes Ray Ransom to conclude that nonviolence has failed. (Chapter 53)
12. B) Charles Dufort wants to bury family secrets—including a hidden cistern and the murder of Shondra Williams—using Bobby's political power. (Chapters 55, 65, 74)
13. B) Martyn Black reveals he started the fires to collect insurance money and his mother's life insurance; the race‑war narrative was a convenient cover. (Chapter 98)
14. B) The bear appears to Penn as an omen of death and mortality (Chapters 2, 11, 12, 122) and to Bobby as a test of fate (Chapter 32).
15. B) The epigraphs explicitly frame the novel's conflict as a fight for justice against entrenched bigotry, even when defeat seems certain.
16. B) Niobe sheds her Black identity to protect her child, symbolizing the painful erasure required for survival in a white‑supremacist society. (Epilogue)
17. B) The novel shows white panic as a deliberate political tool—first predicted by Tio Carrera (Chapter 1) and later exploited by the Poker Club to dissolve the Black‑led city government.
18. The novel traces a direct line from the 1861 lynchings—which Penn's mother researched—through generations of white violence (the Double Eagles, the Mission Hill massacre, the arsons, and the lynching of Ebony Swan). Characters like Penn and Annie confront this legacy, while others like Bobby White try to manipulate it for political gain. The message is that the same racist ideologies and economic exploitation persist across centuries.
19. Bobby White is driven by a messianic belief that he alone can save America, leading him to commit murder, manipulate events, and sacrifice others for his ambition. Penn Cage, despite his terminal illness, is motivated by a sense of justice, truth, and family—he defends the innocent, seeks accountability, and ultimately risks his life to stop Bobby's violent plot. Both men are Southern, but their moral compasses point in opposite directions.
20. The title "Southern Man" captures the conflicted identity of white men in the South—torn between inherited traditions of racism, violence, and pride, and the possibility of moral reckoning. Penn Cage embodies the struggle to be a better kind of Southern man, while Bobby White represents the dangerous allure of power and the refusal to break with the past. The novel asks what it means to be a Southern man in the twenty‑first century.