Bury Your Dead
Looking For Me
Cottage at Glass Beach
Diane at Bibliophile By the Sea asks us to share the first paragraph of a book we are reading. As you can see it’s called First Chapter, First Paragraph Tuesday Intros. As readers we are often captivated or turned away by that first paragraph or two. Let’s see what you think about the first paragraph of my current read.
I just finished reading The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle for book club. What a novel! I’ll tell you about it later this week. Here’s how it begins:
Afterward, he tried to reduce it to abstract terms, an accident in a world of accidents, the collision of opposing forces — the bumper of his car and the the frail scrambling hunched over form of a dark little man with a wild look in his eye — but he wasn’t very successful. This wasn’t a statistic in an actuarial table tucked away in a drawer somewhere, this wasn’t random and impersonal. It had happened to him, Delaney Mossbacher, of 32 Pinon Drive, Arroyo Blanco Estates, a liberal humanist with an unblemished driving record and a freshly waxed Japanese car with personalized plates, and it shook him to the core.
What do you think?
Would you keep reading?
I LOVED this book so much that I read it twice, something I’ve rarely done. Hope you liked it as much as me. (yes, I like the intro as well). Thanks for joining us Margot.
Yep. I’d keep reading!
I really loved this book – can’t wait to read your review!
I tried to read this book once a long time ago and couldn’t get into it. (I got a little further than the first paragraph…). Can’t wait to read your review and if it is as positive as it sounds like it’s going to be I am going to have to try this book again!!! (I recently read the authors book ‘the women’ (after we visited the Frank Lloyd Wright house in Wisconsin) and I liked his writing very much in that book.
What an intriguing opener! Now you’ve piqued my curiosity….
Thanks for sharing…and for visiting my blog.
Hi Margot,
Those opening lines were certainly explosive and would deinitely keep me reading.
I did check out the book and author, both of which are new to me and was surprised by the initial reaction which the publication of the book evoked, although I guess I shouldn’t have been quite so shocked, when we hear the horror stories of the US / Mexican border crossing (we only have the UK media hype to support this view of course).
Your other commenters also have mixed views about the book, but I am seriously thinking about adding it to my reading list, subject to reading your review.
Thanks for sharing those lines.
Yvonne
I would keep reading…looks like many others loved this one!!!