The Gotcha

I make no bones about it – Gabriel Garcia Marquez is my favorite writer and One Hundred Years of Solitude is my favorite book. I have returned to it many times over the years, getting lost in its magic again and again.

Every time I read the first sentence of the book, I am blown away by its perfection.

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

For me, that sentence is The Gotcha – nothing tops it. It grabs you and holds onto you and demands your attention like nothing else. Others might seek to emulate, but none compare.

You have the violence suggested by the firing squad, the mystery of the colonel and his crime, all contrasted by the simple beauty of his memory of ice. If you are not intrigued by that sentence, then god help your poor soul.

So many layers packed into it; so many varied feelings evoked. It’s amazing. I’m awed by it even now, as my eye scans up this page and I cannot help but read it again.

Every writer seeks to create their own gotcha, that little something to introduce your work to readers in such a way that they find themselves suddenly thinking, “holy shit! I simply must read this.”

I am certainly not skilled enough to pack a punch like Mr. Marquez, but I think chapter one of THE BOY is a pretty fucking good “gotcha”. It’s lyrical, mysterious, and haunting and by the end of the chapter, if you’re not a little intrigued, then I was never going to hook you anyway.

We may no longer have the brilliance that is Mr. Marquez, but man oh man, we have that sentence, that gotcha, that level of perfection we writers should all seek to achieve in our work, and for that, every lover of books should be thankful.

I know I am.

Holla.