Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes
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40 free Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Chris Crutcher's 1993 novel has been taught, argued over and pulled from classrooms for three decades, and it still reads like a thriller. Two outcasts, an overweight swimmer and a girl with scars she will not explain, hold each other up until one of them goes silent. This quiz covers the story from the hospital ward to the final confrontation: who helps, who breaks a promise, what the adults do and fail to do, and how it all ends. A handful of questions look at Crutcher himself and at the honors and school challenges the book has collected. It is written for students finishing the novel, teachers who want a quick comprehension check, and readers who remember it from school and want to see how much stuck.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Why does the scarred Sarah Byrnes insist that everyone at school always use her full name?
Its pun on her burns
Its pun on her burns is why she demands both names: the surname echoes the injury that scarred her face and hands when she was three years old.
Q 02Why does a slimming Eric Calhoune go on gorging himself after joining the swim team in Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes?
To keep his best friend
To keep his best friend, Eric tries to stay as much an outcast as Sarah Byrnes. The two had bonded as children over his weight and her scars.
Q 03Which underground newspaper do Eric Calhoune and Sarah Byrnes write to mock the bullies at their junior high?
Crispy Pork Rinds
Crispy Pork Rinds takes its name from the pair's own pain: a sarcastic nod to her burn scars and his weight. Its first issue went after one particular bully.
Q 04Sarah Byrnes's father deliberately burned her face against which household object during a fight with her mother?
A wood stove
A wood stove left the scars that Sarah Byrnes long passed off as an accident. She was three when her father pressed her face to it to punish her mother.
Q 05What does Eric Calhoune eventually discover about Sarah Byrnes's catatonic silence in the hospital psychiatric ward?
She is faking it
She is faking it: the silence is a ruse, because the hospital is the one place she feels safe from her father. His abuse had been getting worse.
Q 06To which city does Ms. Lemry take Sarah Byrnes to search for the mother who abandoned her?
Reno
Reno is where the trail leads, and the reunion in Nevada is no fairy tale. Her mother runs when she sees them and has to be chased down.
Q 07What happens to Carver Middleton after he traps and badly injures Sarah Byrnes's fugitive father, Virgil?
He goes to jail
He goes to jail for the beating, even though he was the one who worked out where the fugitive was hiding. Virgil is later given twenty years in prison.
Q 08Which weapon does Virgil Byrnes use on Eric Calhoune while demanding to know where Sarah Byrnes is hiding?
A hunting knife
A hunting knife leaves Eric with a slashed cheek and a blade in his back. He staggers to the house of a former bully, whose father helps get him to hospital.
Q 09What does swim coach Ms. Lemry do for Sarah Byrnes once Virgil Byrnes is finally sent to prison?
Adopts her
Adopts her: Ms. Lemry and her husband give Sarah Byrnes the loving home her own parents never did. Kirkus called the storybook ending a welcome relief, though a forced one after so much pain.
Q 10Which whale-inspired nickname sticks to the once-heavy swimmer Eric Calhoune in Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes?
Moby
Moby, as in Moby Dick, outlasts the weight he sheds in the pool: even after slimming down he is still called it by his friends.
Q 11At which hospital does Eric Calhoune visit the silent Sarah Byrnes after she goes mute in class?
Sacred Heart
Sacred Heart is where a counselor urges Eric to simply keep talking to her, in the hope that ordinary conversation will draw her back.
Q 12Which former bully tells Eric Calhoune that Sarah Byrnes's scars were inflicted by her own father?
Dale Thornton
Dale Thornton knew because Sarah Byrnes had confided in him alone: both had grown up with abuse. He once tormented the pair, then became their protection.
Q 13Where does Ms. Lemry hide Sarah Byrnes after the teenager flees the hospital to escape her father?
Above her garage
Q 21What does Steve Ellerby call the car whose religious mockery infuriates Mark Brittain in Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes?
The Christian Cruiser
The Christian Cruiser is Ellerby's rolling provocation, and it works: the car is a running source of tension between him and his devout teammate at swim practice.
Q 22What is the profession of Steve Ellerby's father, who defends his son in Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes?
A minister
A minister, which is the twist: the boy who needles the school's loudest believer is a clergyman's son, and the author says his faith is every bit as real.
Q 23In Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, what does Steve Ellerby's father accuse school official Mr. Mautz of mixing?
Church and state
Above her garage sits an apartment, and Ms. Lemry hatches the plan after Eric breaks his promise of secrecy and tells her everything.
Q 14Why is finding Sarah Byrnes's long-absent mother so vital to building a court case against Virgil Byrnes?
She witnessed the abuse
She witnessed the abuse, and no one else did. Sarah Byrnes fears her own word would not stand up in court, since she was only three when it happened.
Q 15How does Sarah Byrnes's mother respond when her daughter and Ms. Lemry finally track her down?
She refuses to help
She refuses to help, even when Sarah Byrnes begs her to come back and make up for lost time. Sarah had started the trip furious at being left behind.
Q 16Why does Virgil Byrnes refuse to let doctors repair the scars on his daughter Sarah's face and hands?
They will make her tougher
They will make her tougher, he claims. The man who scarred her then leaves his daughter to face years of taunts with nothing but a sharp tongue.
Q 17Carver Middleton, who finally confronts Virgil Byrnes, is a veteran of the war in which country?
Vietnam
Vietnam gave the mild-seeming Carver skills nobody suspected. He works out where Virgil is hiding and lays a trap for him.
Q 18In Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, who is the seemingly wimpy Carver Middleton to Eric Calhoune?
His mother's boyfriend
His mother's boyfriend looks like the last person to rely on, yet Carver wins Eric over. One reviewer wrote that Eric ends up with a stepfather he can respect.
Q 19In Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, what does devout Mark Brittain do after his treatment of Jody Mueller is exposed?
He attempts suicide
He attempts suicide, unable to square what he did with what he preaches. He survives, and later visits Eric in hospital to say he feels stupid about it all.
Q 20In Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, what secret about her past with Mark Brittain does Jody Mueller reveal?
An abortion
An abortion, which he had pushed her to have and then blamed her for. Jody leaves him and starts going out with Eric.
Church and state, he says, after Mr. Mautz lets another father blame two students for his son's crisis. He insists nothing more be said until the principal returns.
Q 24Eric Calhoune is in which year of high school when Sarah Byrnes falls silent and is hospitalized?
Senior
Senior year finds Eric slimmer and with more friends than ever, just as the friend who got him through junior high needs him most.
Q 25What does Eric Calhoune know about his absent father in Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes?
Left before the birth
Left before the birth: that is all Eric knows, and he resents it on his mother's behalf. He admits he would still like a father figure to talk to.
Q 26Which family hardship lies behind Steve Ellerby's questions about faith in Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes?
His older brother's death
His older brother's death made Ellerby wrestle early with questions most classmates have yet to face, leaving him a quieter faith that allows for uncertainty.
Q 27Why does Sarah Byrnes try to run away again while Eric Calhoune recovers in the hospital?
To protect her friends
To protect her friends: with her father still at large, she decides nobody else should be hurt on her account. Eric and Ms. Lemry stop her.
Q 28How does Sarah Byrnes react when she discovers the reason Eric Calhoune keeps gorging himself?
Threatens to beat him
Threatens to beat him senseless, and the binging stops. Eric has admired her since grade school as the toughest person he knows.
Q 29Which agency does Sarah Byrnes fear will be called in if Eric Calhoune tells an adult about her father?
Child Protective Services
Child Protective Services would have to step in, she knows, and she begs him to keep quiet. Eric tells his swim coach anyway, breaking his promise.
Q 30Which gift from Eric Calhoune becomes the place where Sarah Byrnes sets down her letter about her father?
A notebook
A notebook was meant for sharing her plans with him; instead she fills it with a letter about why she is desperate to get away from her father.