The Ask and the Answer

The Ask and the Answer is a 2009 work of science fiction for young adults written by Patrick Ness. The second book in a series called Chaos Walking, it follows the events of the novel The Knife of Never Letting Go and precedes Monsters of Men. It follows the young protagonist Todd Hewitt, a thirteen-year-old boy held hostage by the mayor of a dystopian city called New Prentisstown. As he tries to secure his escape, Hewitt also has to stop the war-mongering mayor’s desire to transform people into fighting machines.

The novel picks up immediately where The Knife of Never Letting Go leaves off. Hewitt is arrested by the army of the Mayor of Haven, which has been renamed New Prentisstown. He thinks little of his arrest, being more concerned about the fate of his friend Viola. Hewitt is imprisoned in the town’s clock tower, along with the previous mayor, now a political hostage, Con Ledger. Ledger tells him that Haven discovered a cure for a destructive verbal technology, called Noise, which plagued its people in the events of the previous novel. Mayor Prentiss, who now goes by President Prentiss, has limited the knowledge behind the cure to the leaders of the town. He also has segregated the town by gender and imprisoned all of its Spackle, humanoid creatures to whom the humans historically have assigned a subordinate status. To publicly affirm these new policies, the self-declared President arranges a speech during the influx of his army. In his speech, he states that he is displeased about how easy it was to take over the city. He announces that the people will pay a price for avoiding war.

In a distant house of healing, Viola wakes up. She is concerned for Hewitt’s safety. Female healers tend to a wound she sustained from a gunshot. She encounters the head of the house, Mistress Coyle, who is a vibrant figure in political activism, as well as her apprentices, Maddy and Corinne Wyatt.



Meanwhile, Hewitt is forced to labor as a slave with the Spackle, joining Davy Prentiss, the son of President Prentiss. He holds out hope that his compliance will secure Viola’s safety, but is distraught at the Spackles’ treatment.

Back at the healing house, Viola begins to recover, assisting Mistress Coyle as a healer. One night, all of the healers vanish. Viola learns that they have joined up with a larger group of women to form a bombing squad and political resistance to New Prentisstown, which they call “The Answer,” referring to a similar group that formed during the Spackle War.

Davy and Hewitt are told to mark all of the Spackle with metal bands stamped with identification numbers. Hewitt complies, believing that it is necessary to keep Viola safe. Davy brutalizes the Spackle, strangling one with its metal band. Around this time, large bombings begin to take place in the town; one lands in the Spackle concentration camp. Hewitt attempts to absolve his inaction by saving a Spackle named 1017, who does not express gratitude. President Prentiss creates a government arm called “The Ask” which gathers counterintelligence about the Answer. He assigns Hewitt and Davy to The Ask; Hewitt learns that it is essentially a torture chamber. Viola learns about these tortures and joins the rebellion. With the rampant atrocity against the people of New Prentisstown, Hewitt is compelled to join in the rebellion but still fears for Viola. Viola befriends Lee, another teenager whose family has been abducted by the Ask.



An unknown force bombs a camp of Spackle, killing all except 1017. It is revealed that 1017 can still use Noise, having starved himself to avoid eating the cure. The President appears horrified at the genocide and teaches Hewitt a tactic that reduces Noise. Viola rushes to save a bombing that appears targeted at the tower where Hewitt is. She arrives and notices that he has undergone an ominous personality change. Ledger arrives and accidentally detonates a bomb, killing himself and injuring Viola, Hewitt, and Lee. Shortly after, President Prentiss arrests them. He tortures Viola and asks her where the Answer plans to attack while Hewitt is forced to watch. As he attempts to drown Viola, Hewitt shouts that they are coming from the east. The President thanks him and leaves, but Hewitt suddenly realizes that he still sides with the rebels.

Hewitt and Viola rush to stop the President, but he manages to disable them with Noise, capturing Viola again. Despite Hewitt’s betrayal, the President asks him to rejoin him, revealing his tactic for controlling Noise without the cure. Hewitt takes advantage of an incoming ship to point his gun at Davy, hoping it will force the President to let Viola go. Instead, the President kills Davy, who reveals as he dies that he killed Ben, Hewitt’s guardian, and asks for forgiveness.

Hewitt quickly manages to use his Noise as a weapon against the President. He binds him to the cathedral as Viola escapes to join the resistance. An army of Spackle marches into the city to avenge their genocide. Hewitt is forced to release the President to gain help. As the President resumes his command, he states that the New World will reveal that all men are created for the purpose of war.



The Ask and the Answer raises this final ethical question about whether the purpose of man is pacifist or soldier. Never resolving it, its characters are engaged in an eternal struggle to upend the fates that their totalitarian world sets for them.