First Chapter ~ First Paragraph

It's Tuesday . . . time for . . . 

                                                      

 

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, now hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach, where bloggers post the first paragraph(s) of a book they are currently reading or planning to read sometime soon.  

 

Today I'm featuring an upcoming read, Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich.  The excerpt is from a hardcover edition I recently purchased. 

  

August 7

When I tell you that my white name is Cedar Hawk Songmaker and that I am the adopted child of Minneapolis liberals, and that when I went looking for my Ojibwe parents and found that I was born Mary Potts I hid the knowledge, maybe you'll understand.  Or not.  I'll write this anyway, because ever since last week things have changed.  Apparently--I mean, nobody knows--our world is running backward.  Or forward.  Or maybe sideways, in a way as yet ungrasped.  I am sure somebody will come up with a name for what is happening, but I cannot imagine how everything around us and everything within us can be fixed.  What is happening involves the invisible, the quanta of which we are created.  Whatever is actually occurring, there is constant breaking news about how it will be handled--speculation, really, concerning what comes next--which is why I am writing an account.

 

Historic times!   There have always been letters and diaries written in times of tumult and discovered later, and my thought is that I could be writing one of those.  And even though I realize that all lexical knowledge may be useless, you'll have this record.

 

 

What do you think?  Would you continue reading? 

The opening of the story feels very current--as though the present state of affairs is being described.  Actually the narrator, who is four months pregnant, is writing to her unborn child. 

This First Chapter ~ First Paragraph post was originally composed and/or compiled and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.

 

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph

It's Tuesday . . . time for . . . 

                                                      

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea, where bloggers post the first paragraph(s) of a book they are currently reading or planning to read sometime soon.

Today I'm featuring the book I just finished, The End We Start From by Megan Hunter, borrowed from the library.  

 

i.

I am hours from giving birth, from the event I thought would never happen to me, and R has gone up a mountain.

When I text him, he sends his friend S to look after me, and starts down the mountain.

What do you think?  Would you continue reading?
This short dystopian novel grabs the reader's attention immediately and doesn't let go.  Not only is the unnamed narrator about to give birth, but she and countless others are subsequently displaced by massive flooding that leaves London underwater and sets people on a trek north for higher ground.  Fragility, hope, and the search for a viable community are all too real themes in this story of survival set in contemporary times.

This First Chapter ~ First Paragraph post was originally composed and/or compiled and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.