First Lines: Fredric Brown

All it takes is one sentence to transport you into the world of Fredric Brown.

His voice is as distinctive as his plots and his characters. In many ways, even when he is using a third-person narrator, it seems as though his voice is, in fact, a character in the story. Brown is omnipresent throughout his works, from first sentence to last. But, in this post, it is only the first sentences I am concerned with.

Below are the first sentences to each of his novels that were published during his lifetime. Both mystery and sci-fi are included, as is his novella, The Case of the Dancing Sandwiches. I include that only because it was published individually by Dell, the way a novel would have been. Plus, it is a great title, and the opening line is pretty spectacular.

Reading through these, there are a few recognizable traits that are characteristically Brown. First is his pacing. His books begin the way someone would tell a story orally, as though it was being told around a campfire, or as creepy bedtime story, and other times it reminds of a crazy adventure recounted at the local pub. Sometimes it feels like all three of these at the same time. His Name Was Death is a perfect examples of this.

Another trait that should come as no surprise is Brown's humor. Look at his last published novel, Mrs. Murphy's Underpants -- would anyone else juxtapose a "broken rib" and a "broken trombone" right off the bat? Only Brown. Or how about the playful repetition at the start of The Wench is Dead: "A fuzz is a fuzz is a fuzz..."

And then there are the dark portents and sinister undercurrents that are never entirely absent from Brown's writing, even when he is cracking wise. The Dead Ringer, Compliments of a Fiend, and especially The Far Cry, are perfect examples of this.

Brown, at his best, is unpredictable. He'll take a story where no one else would dare to -- or even have a wild enough imagination to think of. The Screaming Mimi's opener, "You can never tell what a drunken Irishman will do," succinctly conveys this sense of limitless possibilities.

His first lines could be leisurely, such as the twisted Dickensian start to Here Comes a Candle, or they could be fast, hard and punchy, like The Lenient Beast ("Late this morning I found a dead man in my backyard") or Knock Three-One-Two ("He had a name, but it doesn't matter; call him the psycho").

As these opening lines suggest, there are many facets to Brown's style, but they all share one thing in common: they are all unmistakably the work of Fredric Brown.

Below are the lines, pasted first with high-quality scans from my own collection, and second with just the text.

First Lines: Fredric Brown (with cover scans)

"In my dream I was reaching right through the window of a hockshop."
-The Fabulous Clipjoint, 1947

"It didn't seem in the least like a prelude to murder."
-The Dead Ringer, 1948

"There are few streets in America down which a man wearing a mask can walk without attracting undue attention."
-Murder Can Be Fun (A Plot for Murder), 1948

"It was almost quitting time when my Uncle Am came into the back room of the Starlock Agency, where we both worked."
-The Bloody Moonlight, 1949

"You can never tell what a drunken Irishman will do."
-The Screaming Mimi, 1949

"The first attempt to send a rocket to the moon, in 1954, was a failure."
-What Mad Universe, 1949

"Uncle Am didn't get home that night."
-Compliments of a Fiend, 1950

"His name was Joe Bailey and the start of what happened to him was on a midsummer right in 1929 in a flat on Dearborn Street in Chicago, when he was pushed and pulled, head first, from a snug, warm, moist place where he had been quite content."
-Here Comes a Candle, 1950

"In my dream I was standing in the middle of Oak Street and it was dark night."
-Night of the Jabberwock, 1950

"It was hotter and muggier than most August days in Chicago."
-Death Has Many Doors, 1951

"Sudden terror in her eyes, Jenny backed away from the knife, her hand groping behind her for the knob of the kitchen door."
-The Far Cry, 1951

"It was an evening like any other evening--up to midnight, when the drinks began to sneak up on him."
-The Case of the Dancing Sandwiches, 1951

"The telephone directory had given me the address; it was an apartment building like any fairly new, medium-priced apartment building midway between downtown and the suburbs."
-We All Killed Grandma, 1952

"The Herald city room was hot enough to bake a cake, although it was only half past ten by the big electric clock on the wall."
-The Deep End, 1953

"Mack Irby stoke leaning on a heavy cane listening to grind of the talker for the unborn show."
-Madball, 1953

"I'd been intending to stay a few more days but, that afternoon, something changed my mind."
-The Lights in the Sky Are Stars, 1953

"Her name was Joyce Dugan, and at four o'clock on this February afternoon she had no remote thought that within the hour before closing time she was about to commit an act that wold instigate a chain of murders."
-His Name Was Death, 1954

"A fuzz is a fuzz is a fuzz when you waken from a wino jag."
-The Wench is Dead, 1955

"If the peoples of Earth were not prepared for the coming of the Martians, it was their own fault."
-Martians, Go Home, 1955

"Late this morning I found a dead man in my backyard."
-The Lenient Beast, 1956

"Call him by no name, for he had no name."
-Rogue in Space, 1957

"It was the first murder case I'd ever had a chance to work on, and I could easily have missed that chance if we'd know that it was a murder case when the call came in."
-One for the Road, 1958

"The office of Conger & Way was on the second floor of a building that once stood on Commerce Street in Cincinnati, not far from the then-famous Suspension Bridge that leads across the wide, muddy Ohio River to Covington, Kentucky."
-The Office, 1958

"He had a name, but it doesn't matter; call him the psycho."
-Knock Three-One-Two, 1959

"My uncle said, 'Gin, Ed,' and put down his cards."
-The Late Lamented, 1959

"I woke to darkness, with the shreds of a ridiculous dream keeping me from knowing what had awakened me or even who I was."
-The Murderers, 1961

"The Mind Thing used his preceptor sense to test this strange and alien environment in which he found himself."
-The Mind Thing, 1961

"Sitting there stunned, reading and rereading the kidnapper's ransom note in my own typewriter, all I could think of was, Oh God, oh God, why did this have to happen now, now when Ellen and I were in the midst of the worst quarrel we'd had in five years of marriage, now when, if I never saw her alive again I'd never be able to apologize for the horrible things I'd said to her at breakfast."
-Five-Day Nightmare, 1962

"I was lying on my bed that evening with a broken rib and a broken trombone."
-Mrs. Murphy's Underpants, 1963

First Lines: Fredric Brown (text only)

"In my dream I was reaching right through the window of a hockshop."
-The Fabulous Clipjoint, 1947

"It didn't seem in the least like a prelude to murder."
-The Dead Ringer, 1948

"There are few streets in America down which a man wearing a mask can walk without attracting undue attention."
-Murder Can Be Fun (A Plot for Murder), 1948

"It was almost quitting time when my Uncle Am came into the back room of the Starlock Agency, where we both worked."
-The Bloody Moonlight, 1949

"You can never tell what a drunken Irishman will do."
-The Screaming Mimi, 1949

"The first attempt to send a rocket to the moon, in 1954, was a failure."
-What Mad Universe, 1949

"Uncle Am didn't get home that night."
-Compliments of a Fiend, 1950

"His name was Joe Bailey and the start of what happened to him was on a midsummer right in 1929 in a flat on Dearborn Street in Chicago, when he was pushed and pulled, head first, from a snug, warm, moist place where he had been quite content."
-Here Comes a Candle, 1950

"In my dream I was standing in the middle of Oak Street and it was dark night."
-Night of the Jabberwock, 1950

"It was hotter and muggier than most August days in Chicago."
-Death Has Many Doors, 1951

"Sudden terror in her eyes, Jenny backed away from the knife, her hand groping behind her for the knob of the kitchen door."
-The Far Cry, 1951

"It was an evening like any other evening--up to midnight, when the drinks began to sneak up on him."
-The Case of the Dancing Sandwiches, 1951

"The telephone directory had given me the address; it was an apartment building like any fairly new, medium-priced apartment building midway between downtown and the suburbs."
-We All Killed Grandma, 1952

"The Herald city room was hot enough to bake a cake, although it was only half past ten by the big electric clock on the wall."
-The Deep End, 1953

"Mack Irby stoke leaning on a heavy cane listening to grind of the talker for the unborn show."
-Madball, 1953

"I'd been intending to stay a few more days but, that afternoon, something changed my mind."
-The Lights in the Sky Are Stars, 1953

"Her name was Joyce Dugan, and at four o'clock on this February afternoon she had no remote thought that within the hour before closing time she was about to commit an act that wold instigate a chain of murders."
-His Name Was Death, 1954

"A fuzz is a fuzz is a fuzz when you waken from a wino jag."
-The Wench is Dead, 1955

"If the peoples of Earth were not prepared for the coming of the Martians, it was their own fault."
-Martians, Go Home, 1955

"Late this morning I found a dead man in my backyard."
-The Lenient Beast, 1956

"Call him by no name, for he had no name."
-Rogue in Space, 1957

"It was the first murder case I'd ever had a chance to work on, and I could easily have missed that chance if we'd know that it was a murder case when the call came in."
-One for the Road, 1958

"The office of Conger & Way was on the second floor of a building that once stood on Commerce Street in Cincinnati, not far from the then-famous Suspension Bridge that leads across the wide, muddy Ohio River to Covington, Kentucky."
-The Office, 1958

"He had a name, but it doesn't matter; call him the psycho."
-Knock Three-One-Two, 1959

"My uncle said, 'Gin, Ed,' and put down his cards."
-The Late Lamented, 1959

"I woke to darkness, with the shreds of a ridiculous dream keeping me from knowing what had awakened me or even who I was."
-The Murderers, 1961

"The Mind Thing used his preceptor sense to test this strange and alien environment in which he found himself."
-The Mind Thing, 1961

"Sitting there stunned, reading and rereading the kidnapper's ransom note in my own typewriter, all I could think of was, Oh God, oh God, why did this have to happen now, now when Ellen and I were in the midst of the worst quarrel we'd had in five years of marriage, now when, if I never saw her alive again I'd never be able to apologize for the horrible things I'd said to her at breakfast."
-Five-Day Nightmare, 1962

"I was lying on my bed that evening with a broken rib and a broken trombone."
-Mrs. Murphy's Underpants, 1963

First Lines: Jonathan Latimer

I remember when I was first getting into crime fiction, I was in a used bookstore in Bangor, ME, passing over all the titles in the “mystery” section, and not knowing 95% of the authors. There was something about the oddly plain, red typography of one spine that caught my eye, Solomon’s Vineyard by Jonathan Latimer. The collage-style cover of black-and-white photographs was certainly appealing, but it was the first line that instantly arrested me. Almost as soon as the book was bought it was read. Who was this Jonathan Latimer, and where can I find the rest of his books?

Several years later, I now have all of them, and even though I still have a couple left to read, I decided to pull together the first lines of all his novels. I tried something similar a few months ago with David Goodis, and the results seemed to cohere more than they do here. Oh, well – still some good first lines, though I still think Solomon’s Vineyard still takes the cake (and, for my money, it is his best novel). Also, for those interested, there is a complete bibliography available at Rara-Avis.

"It was nearly evening." –Murder in the Madhouse, 1935

"In the cell to the right, a man was still crying." –Headed for a Hearse, 1935

"The morgue attendant jerked the receiver from the telephone, choked off the bell in the middle of a jangling ring." –The Lady in the Morgue, 1936

"With a hollow rattle of its muffler the Greyhound bus disappeared down the cement road and left me in the darkness." –The Search For My Great-Uncle’s Head, 1937

"Sunset splashed gold paint on the windows of the white marble house, brought out apricots and pinks and salmons in the flowering azaleas." –The Dead Don’t Care, 1938

“There’s a burglar downstairs,” Ann Fortune said. –Red Gardenias, 1939

"In the afternoon a white mist came down from the mountains to the plateau, veiling the scrub timber and the underbrush and the road." –Dark Memory, 1940

"From the way her buttocks looked under the black silk dress, I knew she’d be good in bed." –Solomon’s Vineyard (The Fifth Grave), 1941

"A buzzing noise woke Sam Clay." –Sinners and Shrouds, 1955

"He first heard the sound sometime around quarter to eleven." –Black is the Fashion for Dying (The Mink Lined Coffin), 1959

First Lines: David Goodis

Invariably, whenever I start a David Goodis novel I have to set it aside and let the first sentence sink in and slowly drag me down, down, always down. It only takes a few words for Goodis to fully transport you into his gloomy world of gutters, alleys and dives. His novels are the incessant thoughts of 3AM, when its too late to sleep and too early to rise, when you stumble through backlogs of regret and disappointment; that solitary time when you can’t be anything but honest with yourself, even when you don’t like what you have to say.

Seeing how his novels are so thematically consistent, I wanted to see how his first lines would match up if they were all put together. The result is just the sort of dark, brooding poetry that is characteristic of Goodis. Even though both Philadelphia and New York are mentioned, the discrepancy hardly matters: the place is singularly Goodis, that landscape of urban desolation. And the characters, regardless of their names, are but variations on the theme of the loser with his head hung low and his eyes aimed even lower.

I’ve listed the first lines twice. First, I’ve arranged the opening lines in chronological order in the form of a poem (of sorts), so you can see the way the sentences really flow into one another over the course of his entire career. Second, I’ve broken up the lines and provided bibliographic data (the name of the book the line comes from, and date of publication).

***

After a while it gets so bad that you want to stop the whole business.
It was a tough break.
It was one of those hot sticky nights that makes Manhattan show its age.
Next door they were having another fight.
He didn’t like the look in her eyes.
It was raining hard in Philadelphia as Cassidy worked the bus through heavy traffic on Market Street.
It began with a shattered dream.
On Ruxton Street, at ten past ten, the Chinese girl was flat on her back in the gutter.
At three in the morning it was dead around here and the windows of the mansion were black, the mansion dark purple and solemn against the moonlit velvet green of gently sloping lawn.
At the edge of the alleyway facing Vernon Street, a gray cat waited for a large rat to emerge from its hiding place.
January cold came in from two rivers, formed four walls around Hart and closed in on him.
There were three of them sitting on the pavement with their backs against the wall of a flophouse.
Ralph stood on the corner, leaning against the brick wall of Silver’s candy store, telling himself to go home and get some sleep.
At the other end of the bar it was crowded, and at this end he stood alone, drinking a gin-and-tonic.
There were no street lamps, no lights at all.
In the brick-paved alley some of the bricks were missing and the woman stumbled as she hurried along, her head lowered against a slashing wind.
At 11:20 a fairly well-dressed boozehound came staggering out of a bootleg-whiskey joint on Fourth Street.
There was no land in sight.

***

“After a while it gets so bad that you want to stop the whole business.” (Retreat from Oblivion, 1939)

“It was a tough break.” (Dark Passage, 1946)

“It was one of those hot sticky nights that makes Manhattan show its age.” (Nightfall, 1947)

“Next door they were having another fight.” (Behold this Woman, 1947)

“He didn’t like the look in her eyes.” (Of Missing Persons, 1950)

“It was raining hard in Philadelphia as Cassidy worked the bus through heavy traffic on Market Street.” (Cassidy’s Girl, 1951)

“It began with a shattered dream.” (Of Tender Sin, 1952)

“On Ruxton Street, at ten past ten, the Chinese girl was flat on her back in the gutter.” (Street of the Lost, 1952)

“At three in the morning it was dead around here and the windows of the mansion were black, the mansion dark purple and solemn against the moonlit velvet green of gently sloping lawn.” (The Burglar, 1953)

“At the edge of the alleyway facing Vernon Street, a gray cat waited for a large rat to emerge from its hiding place.” (The Moon in the Gutter, 1953)

“January cold came in from two rivers, formed four walls around Hart and closed in on him.” (Black Friday, 1954)

“There were three of them sitting on the pavement with their backs against the wall of a flophouse.” (Street of No Return, 1954)

“Ralph stood on the corner, leaning against the brick wall of Silver’s candy store, telling himself to go home and get some sleep.” (The Blonde on the Street Corner, 1954)

“At the other end of the bar it was crowded, and at this end he stood alone, drinking a gin-and-tonic.” (The Wounded and the Slain, 1955)

“There were no street lamps, no lights at all.” (Down There, 1956)

“In the brick-paved alley some of the bricks were missing and the woman stumbled as she hurried along, her head lowered against a slashing wind.” (Fire in the Flesh, 1957)

“At 11:20 a fairly well-dressed boozehound came staggering out of a bootleg-whiskey joint on Fourth Street.” (Night Squad, 1961)

“There was no land in sight.” (Somebody’s Done For, 1967)