The Bathtub: Emily's Trivia Quiz: Mom and Dad You Made Me So Uptight, I'm Gonna Cuss on the Mike Tonight

My family is surprisingly normal. (I know, they produced me, so it really shouldn't be possible.) But our little nuclear family is shockingly banal, so my angst full teenage years had roughly zero angst. I didn't go away to college very far because I had nothing to really escape from. The only reason I can possibly claim I lived a deprived childhood is because we didn't have cable till I was 16 (watched a lot of PBS instead) and we never had a dog (so I'm living vicariously through Lauren). So, when I need to find something crazy and sad, and I've already read the newspaper that day, I turn to reading all sorts of books about dysfunctional families. More satisfying than Lifetime movies and more exciting than my life, these books are the best way to feel great about your childhood. Especially if your parents are nice people, you never had to worry about anything, you went to great schools, and overall had a pretty fantastic childhood (read: I will not win the pity race when I run for president). Let's see if you know your dysfunctional literary families in this fun quiz.

1. This Faulkner book is about the family that puts the fun in dysfunctional, and stars the quintessential dysfunctional Southern Compson family and their ridiculous antics.
a. The Sound and the Fury
b. Light in August
c. Absalom! Absalom!
d. As I Lay Dying

a. The Sound and the Fury, which is a great book and I highly recommend it!

2. The daddy of all dysfunction, the papa of broken families, and the father of flawed parenting, the trilogy that gave Freud the basis to rock out his theories, this Sophocles play is...
a. The Electra Plays
b. The Oedipus Plays
c. The Republic
d. The Antigone Plays

b. The Oedipus Plays

3. Frank McCourt wrote this epic autobiography about his alcohol filled childhood in Ireland.
a. Becky's Bones
b. Rebecca's Remains
c. Daphne's Dust
d. Angela's Ashes

d. Angela's Ashes

4. This Arthur Miller play is about a family with two kids, one named Biff and the other is named Happy. I now want to get two fish and name them Biff and Happy.
a. A View from the Bridge
b. The Crucible
c. Death of a Salesman
d. On the Waterfront

c. Death of a Salesman

5. When it comes to dysfunction, young adults take the cake. Homecoming by Cynthia Voight starts off when...
a. The family puppy dies...of a drug overdose
b. The kids find out that their parents are brother and sister
c. A war breaks out and the kids must join the army
d. Their mom strands them on the road and never comes back

d. Their mom strands them on the road and never comes back

6. Back to the crazy Southerners! This Rebecca Wells series about Vivi and the crazy Walker clan is about a group of ladies called...
a. The Ga-Ga Sisterhood
b. The Ya-Ya Sisterhood
c. The Ma-Ma Sisterhood
d. The Fa-Fa Sisterhood

b. The Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Now, please enjoy one of my all time favorite MST3K shorts, "A Date With Your Family," a primer on how to not have a dysfunctional family.

Emily's Trivia Quiz runs Fridays at 9:00 a.m. Usually it's longer, but she's exhausted from school and still has to do a bunch of stuff for work in the morning.