Friday, July 21, 2017

One of the best, most evocative first pages of a novel I have ever read

I was about halfway through reading Barkskins, an 800+ page saga by Annie Proulx when the e-book expired off my iPad. I quickly got through A Wrinkle in Time in spite of not loving that book.

I started browsing available e-books through the library's online catalog. I was looking for something to pop up that was on my "to be read" list, for something popular that I never got around to adding to my list or for something quick and easy. Stumbled across nine, ten: a September 11 story by Nora Raleigh Baskins, read the description, checked out the numerical rating on goodreads (4.05), checked it out and downloaded it.



Needing to get things done, I quickly glanced at the first page. It was the best, most evocative first page of a novel, children's literature or adult, that I have ever read. Quite possibly because my memories of September 11, 2001 will always include marveling over the color of the sky at the start of the day. A perfectly gorgeous blue sky no longer renders the same positive feeling that it did on that morning. But will there ever be a sky as gorgeous as the one that morning? I will never forget looking through the window of my sky blue bathroom in my New York City suburban home as I was getting ready for work that morning. I will never forget appreciating how the sky blue hue to the sky was even more wonderful than the sky blue tone of my bathroom walls. The color of the sky that morning was that big a deal.

It was such a big deal that there's a whole section of the 9-11 Memorial on the site of the World Trade Center in New York City that is devoted to the color of the sky on that memorable day.


Baskins' prologue to nine, ten: a September 11 story brings me right back to that sky. I've reread the page several times, I've read it aloud to my husband, I hope to share it with anyone who will listen. And right now, I feel the need to share it with you.



Everyone will mention the same thing, and if they don't, when you ask them, they will remember. It was a perfect day.
More than eight million people lived in New York City that year, so of course, not everyone's day started perfectly. There was excitement and pain, anxiety and boredom, love and loneliness, anger and joy. But everyone who looked up that morning must have marveled, whether noting it out loud or not: What a perfect day.
 The sky was robin's-egg blue. There were one or two fluffy, almost decorative clouds. It was late-summer warm, so the air was still and clear, not the least bit humid. Warm the exact way you would set the temperature of the earth, if you could. Clear, with just enough breeze so you knew you were outside, breathing fresh air. People would remember that day with all sorts of adjectives: serene, lovely, cheerful, invigorating, peaceful, quiet, astounding, crystalline, blue.
Perfect.
Until 8:46 a.m., when the first plane struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center and nothing would ever be the same again.
But that has not happened yet.
If the rest of the book is as wonderful as the prologue, I'm in for an emotional ride.





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