Memorable Opening Lines

A short take on opening lines for African American novels. 
Script by Howard Rambsy II
Read by Kassandra Timm

Transcript

I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.

And I lost about a year of my life and much of the comfort and security I had not valued until it was gone.        

--Kindred by Octavia Butler

Quiet as it's kept, there were no marigolds in the fall 1941. We thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having her father's baby that the marigolds did not grow.         

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison 

 Those are just two among many memorable opening lines from African American novels. 

You’re listening to Remarkable Receptions—a podcast about popular and critical responses to African American novels and more.

We haven’t said nearly enough about how the openings of novels figure into African American reception history. But the beginnings, the opening words and sentences of a novel serve as a kind of first impression that initiates, if not shapes, the relationship between a reader and author. Plus, there is a long literary and oral tradition of recognizing significant novels by their memorable opening lines.

Readers who love certain novels reference various passages, and opening lines are often among those they cite and remember. 

You better not never tell nobody but God. It'd kill your mammy.

That opening from Alice Walker’s The Color Purple is quite memorable for anyone who reads the novel. And who can forget the haunting opening of Toni Morrison’s Beloved?

                        124 was spiteful. Full of a baby's venom.

Despite the importance of opening lines from various novels by Black authors, it’s unlikely that you’ll come across a scholarly article on the subject. In the classes that they teach and in casual conversations, scholars of African American literature mention notable opening lines, but we somehow focus on other literary elements for the scholarship we produce. Our discussions of memorable first lines are like the folklore of our field, passed along by word of mouth, but not so much in the formal critical discourse. 

Contemporary readers might recognize this opening sentence: “The first time Caesar approached Cora about running north, she said no.” That’s from Colson Whitehead’s 2016 novel The Underground Railroad. The popular and critical success of the novel raises the likelihood that the opening line might someday join the esteemed company of works by Morrison, Walker, Richard Wright, and others. 

Sometimes an opening line sticks with you because of how surprising, humorous, or audacious it is. That’s definitely the case with the opening of Paul Beatty’s 2015 novel, The Sellout. 

This may be hard to believe, coming from a black man, but I’ve never stolen anything. Never cheated on my taxes or at cards. Never snuck into the movies or failed to give back the extra change to a drugstore cashier indifferent to the ways of mercantilism and minimum-wage expectations. I’ve never burgled a house. Held up a liquor store.

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 This episode was written by Howard Rambsy. The episode was edited by Elizabeth Cali.