At The Beginning

“Once upon a time,” “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” “You better not never tell nobody but God,” and “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit,” are beginnings to some famous books.  Have you ever considered just how important the beginning of a book is?  I haven’t until I attended a book club. 

We recently finished the book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo, a memoir of life in a slum of Mumbai, India.  It wasn’t one of my favorite books, and when another woman at Book Club asked me why I said, “I feel that if it wasn’t for the prologue people wouldn’t read the book.  The prologue is what would keep people interested because by the time we finally find out what happened the night the prologue took place we are already care enough about the characters to find out what happens to all of them.”

The lady smiled and said, “Good thing the prologue is there then.” 

That shut me up.  I realized then that the prologue was the most important part of this book.  If it weren’t there I would not have finished the book.  This fact made me start thinking about how important beginnings are.  I’ve talked with many people who put books down and never pick them up again.  One of the main reasons is because the first several chapters didn’t capture their attention.  The author may have put his attention getters later in the book, but for some people that’s too late and the book goes to Goodwill collecting dust. 

The slum of Annawadi

 Beginnings set the scene and tone of a book.  In Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Boo not only describes the night The One Leg burnt herself, but also gives a description of Annawadi, the slum in which the book takes place.  Boo, a writer for The New York Times, doesn’t describe the slum in the same way a typical book writer would—she does it in a way that makes the story and the description flow together like soap and water.  Right away I knew that this wasn’t a book about a woman who burnt herself, but about the unthinkable lives real people lived at the same time I was discovering the fun of college and challenges of being on my own.  The descriptions that took place in the Prologue made me realize this book was more real than any other non-fiction book I had read.

From the description of people passing by the burnt body of The One Leg I knew Behind the Beautiful Forevers was not going to be a lets-skip-through-daisies book.  I knew this book was going to be about life as it really was for the people living in the slums of Mumbai.  This book was raw.  Boo would not hold anything back as she described flies sitting in the eyes of babies, the stench of the public toilets, and hunger that resulted in boys becoming thieves to feed themselves. 

Boo’s move to start her book in the middle of the story was wise.  She captured the reader’s attention and told readers that the book they had just picked up wasn’t going to cut corners in telling the honest truth of living in Annawadi.  If you are looking for beautifully written memoir, I would stop by your local library and pick up Behind the Beautiful Forevers.  It’s a book you won’t soon forget.

For some extra fun on beginnings, Studio C has a great skit on the impact beginning of books can have on the reader.