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Some opening lines may be memorable because we
enjoyed the book, not because the line was fabulous. Think about “Last night
I dreamed I went to Manderley again.” My response to that line was, and is,
“Who cares? I’m not interested in anyone’s dreams.” (I skip dreams inserted
into novels, even when I like the novel and its author.) But I enjoyed
Rebecca; and because I did, among the books I’ve bought, read part of and
donated is Sally Beauman’s Rebecca’s Tale, which
takes place twenty years after Rebecca’s death. I bought this book online,
without having read a review of it. But when it arrived, I began to have
second thoughts; it’s 528 pages long, and the back cover claims that
“Rebecca’s tale is just beginning.” Hmm. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know that
much more about Rebecca. I decided to follow the writing teachers’ tips, and
check the first line to see if it “hooked” me. Uh, oh. The first line: “Last
night I dreamed I went to Manderley again.” Not only tedious, but
repetitive. I put Rebecca’s Tale down, and when I picked it up
again, couldn’t make myself finish it.
As I thought more about “hooks,” I realized I rarely
look at the opening line before I buy a book, or before I check it out
of the library. To find the kind of books I like, I buy the latest work
by an author I’ve read and enjoyed, or get a recommendation from a
friend, or read the text on the book jacket.
But I’m a pushover for what I think is a great hook—a
sequel or a continuation of a book I know and love. I own about fifty
continuations and sequels relating to Jane Austen’s novels. I acquired
them because I adore the original novels, and long to know what happened
to Austen’s characters. In fact, I buy just about any sequel or book
related in some way to a novel I enjoyed.
What are the other types of related books I like? The
book that develops a minor character in an old favorite—like Jane
Fairfax in Emma—into a major character with a plot of her own.
(See Jane Fairfax by Naomi Royde Smith, 1940,
or Jane Fairfax by Joan Aiken, 1990). Another
favorite is a retelling of an old favorite from another character’s
point of view. I enjoyed Wicked, the wonderful Oz-related
musical based on Gregory Maguire’s book, Wicked: The Life and Times
of the Wicked Witch of the West. I checked the opening line of the
book, and it’s a good one: “A mile above Oz, the Witch balanced on the
wind’s forward edge, as if she were a green fleck of the land itself,
flung up and sent wheeling away by the turbulent air.” But in this case,
the concept was the hook.
Unfortunately, some sequels don’t work. In 2006,
Geraldine McCaughrean produced a sequel to Peter Pan, entitled
Peter Pan in Scarlet. A sequel to Peter Pan in itself
is a hook, but so is the title. (Why was the green-clad elfin boy I know
so well wearing red?) A good title can be a great hook. Here’s the
beginning of a list of books I’d buy on title alone: The Secret
Garden Revisited; More Adventures With the Little White Horse;
Harry Potter’s Birth and Early Childhood; and Jane Marple
at Twenty: Her First Investigation. (I’d like to write the Jane
Marple book.)
I bought Peter Pan in Scarlet without reading
a review, or even looking at the opening line, which is “I’m not going
to bed,” said John—which startled his wife.” Yep, that’s right. Not much
of a hook. But I read the book anyway, and I didn’t like it.
I loved Gone With The Wind, although I wasn’t
‘hooked’ by its opening line: “Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but
men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins
were.” I read Gone With The Wind after I saw the film because
it was a great love story. (I was hooked by the film.) I longed to know
what became of all the characters, and rushed out to buy Scarlett,
Alexandra Ripley’s sequel to Gone With The Wind. I didn’t like
it. But I keep hoping, and keep buying sequels.
I probably would have bought Daisy Buchanan’s
Daughter by Tom Carson anyway, but I was dazzled by Steven Moore in
the Washington Post: “You’re unlikely to find a wittier, more
ingenious, more compulsively readable novel this year than Tom Carson’s
latest, a satiric revue of the dearly departed American Century starring
an 86-year-old woman who saw it all. The daughter of that charmer whose
voice is full of money, as gold-hatted Gatsby said of Daisy. Pamela
Buchanan tells what happened after the last mournful pages of The
Great Gatsby.” I was hooked. A great review may be the best hook of
all.
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