By Its Cover

Love letters are a dying breed.

Having said that, so are thank you notes. With those two things in mind, I thought I'd share my deep love and gratefulness for the first sentence of a novel. This isn't a review or a top ten list or me projecting why some introductions are better than others. It's just a note.

When something is exceptional, it should be written about. The first sentence can be elusive, intoxicating, striking, ugly, and gorgeous all at the same time. There are few things in this life that bring me the kind of intrigue and allure that opening remarks do. As Michael Chabon once wrote, I'm a "junkie for the written word." Luckily for me, writers are--and have been for quite some time-- "manufacturing my drug of choice."

Some people have trouble identifying what struck a cord and reminded them of such love or passion. They have difficulty putting their finger on that was inexplicably enlightening. But not me. It was today. And it was a sentence by John Banville on the first page of his novel, The Infinities.

"Of the things we fashioned for them that they might be comforted, dawn is the one that works."

An opening sentence is a great work of art--a string of words designed to enchant you and behave like a former lover--drawing you in with an intense magnetism and arrogance--alleging that it knows you perhaps better than you know yourself.

Now this--this is true love.