I thought we’d do something a little different, a little fun.
I’ve listed thirty-six first sentences from classic novels and mystery-thrillers. See how many you can identify by the first sentence alone. Give the title of the book and the author.
And it’s not fair to Google them. No fair, no way. We’ll do this on the Honor System.
I’ll give all the answers at the end of the day. Whoever gets the most right wins a signed, hardcopy of my novel BEAT.
If there’s a tie, I’ll pick the winner from a hat.
Have fun!
* * *
1. The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call “out there.”
2. I’d finished my pie and was having a second cup of coffee when I saw him.
3. Call me Ishmael.
4. I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…
5. When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.
6. I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper…
7. riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
8. Fuck you.
9. I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up.
10. I sent one boy to the gaschamber at Huntsville.
11. To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.
12. The year 1866 was marked by a strange occurrence, an unexplained and inexplicable phenomenon that surely no one has forgotten.
13. One sultry evening early in July a young man emerged from the small furnished room he occupied in a large five-storied house in Sennoy Lane, and turned slowly, with an air of indecision, towards the Kalininksy bridge.
14. You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.
15. The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of The Dancers.
16. Howard Roark laughed.
17. I’d been hearing about the Tennis Club for years, but I’d never been inside of it.
18. It was good standing there on the promontory overlooking the evening sea, the fog lifting itself like gauzy veils to touch his face.
19. It was a pleasure to burn.
20. He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees.
21. Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes.
22. The hall ahead is dark, a tunnel of black.
23. Foley had never seen a prison where you could walk right up to the fence without getting shot.
24. Coming back from the dead isn’t as easy as they make it seem in the movies.
25. When she was home from her boarding school I used to see her almost every day sometimes, because their house was right opposite the Town Halle Annexe.
26. They threw me off the hay truck about noon.
27. Late in the afternoon of a chilly day in February, two gentlemen were sitting alone over their wine, in a well-furnished dining parlor, in the town of P—, in Kentucky.
28. It was daybreak and the rancher, standing at his kitchen window, watched two silhouettes stagger forward through the desert scrub.
29. Samuel Spade’s jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth.
30. In the corner of a first-class smoking carriage, Mr. Justice Wargrave, lately retired from the bench, puffed at a cigar and ran an interested eye through the political news in The Times.
31. Everybody lies.
32. Her stomach clutched at the sight of the water tower hovering above the still, bare trees, a spaceship come to earth.
33. Behavioral Science, the FBI section that deals with serial murder, is on the bottom floor of the Academy building at Quantico, half-buried in the earth.
34. “That’s torn it!” said Lord Peter Wimsey.
35. “I am inclined to think–” said I.
36. “Tush, never tell me; I take it much unkindly, that you, Iago, who has had my purse, as if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.”
Jim Thompson . . . .KIller Inside (?)
Herman Melville . . . Moby Dick
Ginsberg . . . uh . . . Howl (?)
Harper Lee . . . To Kill a Mockingbird
McCarthy . . . No Country for Old Men
Jules Verne . . . urrrgh.
Mary Shelley . . . Frankenstein (just re-read it!)
Ayn Rand . . . Fountainhead
?? . . . Black Money
Ray Bradbury . . .Fahrenheit 451 (are you taking off for spelling?)
George Orwell . . . Animal Farm
Elmore Leonard . . . oh, *drat* I'm guessing Out of Sight?
Faust . . . Money Shot
James Cain . . . Postman Always Rings Twice
Dashiell Hammett . . . Maltese Falcon (always feel like I'm putting in too many l's and m's)
Agatha Christie . . . And Then There Were None
Mike Connelly . . . Brass Verdict
Thomas Harris . . . Silence of the Lambs
Dorothy Sayers . . . wild guess . . . 9 Tailors?
Arthur Conan Doyle . . . Watson said it . . . the one with the substituted body and Moriarty? This is going to bug me all day
William Shakespeare . . . Othello
Best I can do before caffeine . . . and i'm darn well googling after I post this!
Sarah….you're freaking me out, you're so good. I hope nobody else reads your comment.
Sarah's beyond good. Jesus, she did that without caffeine OR Google?
I'm inclined to think the first one is IN COLD BLOOD, not THE KILLER INSIDE ME, but what do I know?
Beyond that — oops, deadline. This qualifies as writer's block.
You are an evil man, Mr. Schwartz.
Stephen: It's a good thing I already have a signed copy of "Beat" because I'm sure not going to win one with this. Still, here it goes:
1) In Cold Blood-Truman Capote
3)Moby Dick-Herman Melville
5)To Kill a Mockingbird-Harper Lee
16)The Fountainhead-Ayn Rand
20)A Farewell to Arms-Ernest Hemingway
21)Animal Farm-George Orwell
25)The Collector-John Fowles
26)The Postman Always Rings Twice-James M. Cain
28)Do They Know I'm Running-David Corbett
29)The Maltese Falcon-Dashiel Hammett
33)The Silence of the Lambs-Thomas Harris
Lots of gaps here, but it was an interesting challenge. Thanks.
Lookin' good there, Larry. You got more than would've got for sure.
David – you better take a closer look….just give the whole thing a once-over.
It would help if you'd numbered the questions, Stephen
As it is, I'm going to have to go and lie down in a darkened room …
Zoe – that makes all the sense in the world. Consider it done.
Sarah – so far you're in the lead…
I'm in the middle of taking a deposition and we're at a break but I was never very good at this, but I did recognize #28 (hello, David?), among a few others. Like Moby Dick and Otello. Opps, gotta go. I hate tests.
3. Moby Dick
5. To Kill a Mocking Bird
21. Animal Farm
33. Silence of the Lambs
That's all I got.. I really hope we get the answers at some point. 4 and 11 are gonna drive me crazy, I feel I like should know them..
What a great idea for our Wild Card Tuesdays! I'm also in deadline mode (sadly for a corporate job, not a novel) so I'm piking on this one. Pike might be an Aussie expression, but I think you get the gist!
Phillipa
I think #4 is The Paradise Prophecy. If i'm wrong sorry Robert!
Um . . . #3 . . . aaaaah . . . that one about the whale?
I am so very, terribly, well just so no fucking good at this at all.
Love this! #8 I'm thinking SAVAGES by Don Winslow.
I don't think I've come up with anything new but….
3. Call me Ishmael -Moby Dick
4. I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…Farewell to Arms
5. When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow – To Kill a Mockingbird
8. Fuck you – The Shining??
9. I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up – On the Road
10. I sent one boy to the gaschamber at Huntsville – The Green Mile?
15. The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of The Dancers – The Long Goodbye
29. Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth – The Maltese Falcon
33. Behavioral Science, the FBI section that deals with serial murder, is on the bottom floor of the Academy building at Quantico, half-buried in the earth. – Silence of the Lambs
Phillip – I just turn the last page on Savages, not two minutes ago. Great ending!
I should have written my answers down, right? I hate games but I love this one. I think I got about ten. Was weird to see one of my own lines up there, totally forgot I'd started with that.
Did you do Othello? That was an interesting one to throw in there.
Alex – I'm glad you looked closely – more closely than our friend Mister Corbett. Yeah, I thought the Othello would be a fun addition. Like, why the fuck not, you know?
Picture this . . .
I'm now on the floor, my tongue lolling to one side.
I won't even admit how few I got. Sheesh.
Pari – if I didn't have the answers I probably would've got five, tops.
Are we ready for the answers, guys, or do we want to give it a little more time?
Okay, guys, it's getting late. I'm going to call it a win for Sarah, who pretty much hit it with about 20 correct answers. Sarah – email me at stephen@stephenjayschwartz.com with an address where I can send you a signed copy of BEAT.
And here are the answers….
1. The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call "out there."
(IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote)
2. I'd finished my pie and was having a second cup of coffee when I saw him.
(THE KILLER INSIDE ME by Jim Thompson)
3. Call me Ishmael.
(MOBY-DICK by Herman Melville)
4. I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…
(HOWL by Allen Ginsberg)
5. When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.
(TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee)
6. I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper…
(NAKED LUNCH by William S. Burroughs)
7. riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
(FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce)
8. Fuck you.
(SAVAGES by Don Winslow)
9. I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up.
(ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac)
10. I sent one boy to the gaschamber at Huntsville.
(NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN by Cormac McCarthy)
11. To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.
(THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck)
12. The year 1866 was marked by a strange occurrence, an unexplained and inexplicable phenomenon that surely no one has forgotten.
(20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA by Jules Verne)
13. One sultry evening early in July a young man emerged from the small furnished room he occupied in a large five-storied house in Sennoy Lane, and turned slowly, with an air of indecision, towards the Kalininksy bridge.
(CRIME AND PUNISHMENT by Fyodor Dostoevsky)
14. You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.
(FRANKENTSEIN by Mary Shelley)
15. The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of The Dancers.
(THE LONG GOODBYE by Raymond Chandler)
16. Howard Roark laughed.
(THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand)
17. I'd been hearing about the Tennis Club for years, but I'd never been inside of it.
(BLACK MONEY by Ross MacDonald)
18. It was good standing there on the promontory overlooking the evening sea, the fog lifting itself like gauzy veils to touch his face.
(IN A LONELY PLACE by Dorothy B. Hughes)
19. It was a pleasure to burn.
(FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury)
20. He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees.
(FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS by Ernest Hemingway)
21. Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes.
(ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell)
22. The hall ahead is dark, a tunnel of black.
(THE UNSEEN by Alexandra Sokoloff)
23. Foley had never seen a prison where you could walk right up to the fence without getting shot.
(OUT OF SIGHT by Elmore Leonard)
24. Coming back from the dead isn't as easy as they make it seem in the movies.
(MONEY SHOT by Christa Faust)
25. When she was home from her boarding school I used to see her almost every day sometimes, because their house was right opposite the Town Halle Annexe.
(THE COLLECTOR by John Fowles)
26. They threw me off the hay truck about noon.
(THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain)
27. Late in the afternoon of a chilly day in February, two gentlemen were sitting alone over their wine, in a well-furnished dining parlor, in the town of P—, in Kentucky.
(UNCLE TOM'S CABIN by Harriet Beecher Stowe)
28. It was daybreak and the rancher, standing at his kitchen window, watched two silhouettes stagger forward through the desert scrub.
(DO THEY KNOW I'M RUNNING? by David Corbett)
29. Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth.
(THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett)
30. In the corner of a first-class smoking carriage, Mr. Justice Wargrave, lately retired from the bench, puffed at a cigar and ran an interested eye through the political news in The Times.
(AND THEN THERE WERE NONE by Agatha Christie)
31. Everybody lies.
(THE BRASS VERDICT by Michael Connelly)
32. Her stomach clutched at the sight of the water tower hovering above the still, bare trees, a spaceship come to earth.
(WHAT THE DEAD KNOW by Laura Lippman)
33. Behavioral Science, the FBI section that deals with serial murder, is on teh bottom floor of the Academy building at Quantico, half-buried in the earth.
(THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS by Thomas Harris)
34. "That's torn it!" said Lord Peter Wimsey.
(THE NINE TAILORS by Dorothy L. Sayers)
35. "I am inclined to think–" said I.
(THE VALLEY OF FEAR by Arthur Conan Doyle)
36. "Tush, never tell me; I take it much unkindly, that you, Iago, who has had my purse, as if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this."
(OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE by William Shakespeare)
Thanks, Stephen!
I caught a lucky break — you included several of my favorite classics and some of my recent reads!
And thanks for the answers — I looked for that Sherlock story off and on all day and couldn't find it.