try and wish as i might to dislodge the opening sentence from the corner of permanency of my brain, it won't shift. because it's just that good. so delicious and juicy and evocative and rhythmic that every time i peel open the well-loved, well-worn, well-aged copy of the book, i am unable to stop reading at just that first line.
'It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.'
at once it's hot and sticky and bad things are in the air and it's all whimsical and meandering and at lost. i am there on the sidewalk, melting into the cement, unsure of it all.
