What’s your favorite first line in a book? Here are a few notable examples…
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” — *Pride & Prejudice* by Jane Austen (can’t wait for the new series)
“The first decade of the twentieth century was not a good time to be born black and female in Stamps, Arkansas.” — *Mom & Me & Mom* by Maya Angelou
“Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu.” — *Waiting* by Ha Jin
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” — *The Catcher in the Rye* by J.D. Salinger
“All children, except one, grow up.” — *Peter Pan* by J.M. Barrie
Well, the other day, I was reading *Lion* by Sonya Walger. In her autobiographical novel — which she describes as “a work of fiction where everything really happened” — she explores her complicated relationship with her charismatic father, who also happens to be a skydiver, cocaine addict, ex-con, polo player, pilot, and race-car driver. “It’s hard to compete with adrenalin when you are a child,” she says.
The entire novel was remarkable — like page-turning poetry — but what struck me most was her opening line, when Walger pays homage to her mother:
But how hard to be the one who stayed! The one who packed the raisins but not the nuts, who wiped the lipstick off the piano teacher’s mug, tissue-wrapped the Christmas ornaments, washed the sheets, staunched the blood, ignored the lies and the slammed doors, peeled the stickers off the walls, fought for sunscreen and table manners, made beds, combed out the lice, stapled the hems and later sewed them, kissed the friends, befriended the lovers, returned the books, loaned the car, the house, the denim jacket with the Liberty lining, combed out the lice, pushed the swings, paired the socks, allowed the cigarettes, forbade unkindness, packed the trunk, renewed the passports, taught the second tongue, recited the alphabet, churned the ice cream, bought the brads, the Walkman, the wedding dress, learned the names and never forgot them, shared the crossword, the towel, the chewed gum.
How incredible is that? “But how hard to be the one who stayed!” I think many mothers, in some way, can relate.
