It’s a lie, the first page of a book, because it masquerades as a beginning. A real beginning—the opening of something—when what you’re being offered is an arbitrary line in the sand. This story starts here. Pick a random event. Ignore whatever came before it or catch up later. Pretend the world stops when the book closes, or that a resolution isn’t simply another random moment on a curated timeline. But life isn’t like that, so books are dishonest. Maybe that’s why humans like them. And it’s saying that kind of shit that gets me thrown out of the Fentiman Road Book Club.
