Clarity, Curiosity, and a Care-Filled Life
Plus, a roundup of exciting June releases and a new YA publisher to keep an eye on.
Recently, I stumbled on to this great piece by Allegra Hyde titled “What Makes a Great Opening Line?” In it, she chases this question, surveying some of the most popular opening lines in literature and what makes them stick.
I read a lot of books, but I rarely remember opening lines. Of course, there are the all-timers, like the tee off for Moby Dick:
Call me Ishmael.
Or Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .
I also like this one from C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader:
There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.
Hyde argues that the best opening lines fill reader’s minds with a healthy balance of clarity and curiosity. She writes, “Seductive first sentences ground a reader in a situation, while also prompting a question in the reader’s mind that propels them forward in the text.”
The quotes above certainly fit the bill, but I find myself lacking in recent examples. Where are all the contemporary openers? Where are the modern novels that set you spinning from the first line? Maybe it’s just me, but there’s only one leading sentence that has stuck with me in recent years.
I like to think I know what death is.
These are the opening words to Jesmyn Ward’s haunting novel Sing, Unburied, Sing. I remember casually flipping open the book as I lounged in my living room, prepared to take in a much-lauded new release. And that line changed everything I expected to find among those pages.
Who is this person who thinks they know so much about death? And why do they “like” this quality about themselves? And what kind of life have they lived to gain such expertise?
Nine words. Clarity and curiosity. Everything that followed composed a novel I haven’t stopped thinking about since 2017.
Last month, I wrote about George Saunders, and I find myself thinking of him again now as he, too, has a poignant thought, specifically on the notion of curiosity. He writes,
What a story is “about” is to be found in the curiosity it creates in us, which is a form of caring.
You might say the best opening lines, like the best stories, are those that train us to care. They introduce us to a character, a conflict, a question—something we’re willing to invest our time and emotions in. And our attention, or lack thereof, reflects in part how much we care.
Good reading requires many of the same sensitivities required for good living, which makes the exercise reflective of our daily habits. To be sure, plenty of opening lines and stories in general are stinkers, but I wonder how many first sentences I’ve overlooked out of haste, determined to scratch a title off my to-read list, or how many plots I’ve skimmed having jumped to conclusions about the cover art, or how many paragraphs I’ve breezed through based on the judgments supplied by others . . .
And suddenly, I’m not so sure I’m writing about books anymore.
May Reads
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers—It took me most of the month to get through this behemoth, but it was worth the journey. Clocking in at over 800 pages, the novel chronicles the life of Ailey Pearl Garfield to highlight Du Bois’s concept of “double consciousness” experienced by every Black American. It’s a heartbreaking examination of racial history, generational trauma, and familial abuse, as well as a resounding anthem of hope for the future.
How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu—When a friend of mine messaged me about this title describing it as “the saddest book I’ve ever read,” it shot to the top of my list. I’m a glutton for sad books, and he wasn’t kidding—it’s sad. But it’s also beautiful writing, unraveling a collection of stories post-2030 after global warming defrosts a long-frozen virus in the Arctic Circle that begins ravaging the world. Despite its global reach, each story is surprisingly intimate, and the ending delivers a satisfying payoff.
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan—A number of the characters from the cast of her Pulitzer-winning novel, A Visit from the Good Squad, return in this captivating novel about a world where technology has made it possible for people to externalize and commodify their memories. Like Nagamatsu’s book, Egan heaves a collection of seemingly unrelated stories into orbit and meticulously draws them into the same gravitational pull. Come for the story, stay for the brilliant prose of a rightly celebrated master.
June’s Most Anticipated
Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen—Back in 2018, Chen published her novel Bury What We Cannot Take, which was easily one of my favorite books of that year. (Chen was gracious enough to join me for a Q&A about her book, which I also reviewed.) So ever since she announced her forthcoming tale about two Asian American women who launch a business selling counterfeit handbags, my patience has steadily worn thin. Thankfully, it’ll be out next week.
Nuclear Family by Joseph Han—With a successful restaurant on the rise in Hawai’i, the Cho family is on the verge of seeing their dreams blossom until a video of their son trying to cross the Korean DMZ goes viral. Without warning, they’re plunged into uncertainty over whether or not they’ll see him again, as he sits in a South Korean prison, possessed by the spirit of his late grandfather who only wants to bridge the divides among his family. Oh, and it’s all set in the months prior to the 2018 nuclear missile false alarm. Sign me up.
The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill—Summer means a bevy of new thrillers, and this one caught my eye. Four strangers occupy the same table in the reading room of the Boston Public Library when their visit is violently interrupted by a woman’s scream. Security springs into action, ordering everyone to stay where they are until the situation is under control. So the strangers sit and they wait, but here’s the twist: one of them is a murderer.
Salty by Alissa Wilkinson*—I have a short list of writers who I consider worth reading no matter what they write. Wilkinson is one of those writers. From her film criticism to her cultural analysis, she’s a wise observer with much to offer. With Salty, she assembles a dream dinner with remarkable twentieth-century women, like Hannah Arendt, Octavia Butler, and Maya Angelou, to examine how “food managed to root these women into their various callings.”
*Salty was part of last month’s Most Anticipated list, but I hadn’t realized the pub date got pushed back to June. So I’m re-upping Alissa’s title as it’s bound to be a worthwhile read.
Reading Roundup
Revisiting the Christian fantasy novels that shaped decades of conservative hysteria—Speaking of Alissa Wilkinson, here’s a great example of why I never miss her work. In this piece, she joins two other Vox writers to discuss how Christian fiction in the ’80s and ’90s influenced the imaginations of Christians toward spiritual warfare, abuse, and what the article terms the “modern evangelical conspiracy theory.”
How Barnes & Noble Went From Villain to Hero—You might think bookstore chains would be considered anathema by definition to independent booksellers, but that’s not the case with Barnes & Noble these days.
Michael Chabon: Are Kids the Enemy of Writing?—I first read this essay while on a babymoon with my wife before the birth of our first child. It’s the opener to Chabon’s collection Pops, and it permanently endeared me to him.
Dystopian Author Christopher Brown Truly Lives on the Edge—An interesting look at the author’s eccentric lifestyle and home, located just outside of Austin.
Afterword
With two kids growing up way too fast in my household, I’m paying more attention to publishers focused on younger audiences. Owl’s Nest is new to the scene, co-founded by my friend and author Karin Hoyle late last year. Aimed at readers aged 8 to 18, they launched with a compelling vision “to publish books that capture the imagination of adolescents. Between the quiet pages of a book, the young see the world, hear the world, and grow wise.”
Wisdom isn’t always a virtue prioritized in YA lit, but I’ve talked story with Karin enough over the years to know that she thinks about storytelling on a different playing field than most and wants to share stories as enthralling as they are instructive. Keep an eye on Owl’s Nest. They’ve got a bright future ahead of them.
You can read more about the publisher in this interview with Karin we published this week in our new issue of Fathom.