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A good beginning

My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck al all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.
From We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.

A very promising first sentence, don't you think?

Comments

George said…
Marvelous first line! The LIBRARY OF AMERICA just issued a wonderful volume of Shirley Jackson's work.

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