Welcome to today’s post for the A to Z Blogging Challenge. For each day, I’ll be sharing the opening paragraphs to a book that starts with that letter and is sitting on my shelves or my Kindle.
Night Night, Sleep Tight by Hallie Ephron
Friday, May 23, 1985
Arthur Unger slides open the glass door and steps out on to his flagstone patio. He's had a few drinks but he doesn't feel them. It's late at night, and though the sky is clear and there is no moon, there are no stars, either. There never are. Between ambient light and air pollution, he'd have to drive to Mount Baldy to see Orion's Belt.
The sky is . . . He gazes up at it. Opaque? Inky? Like warm tar? His ex-wife would have nailed it. She was great at narrative description and dialogue. And of course, she could type. He was the plotmeister. Arthur takes a final drag on his cigarette, the tip glowing in the dark, and stubs it out in one of the dirt-filled, terra-cotta planters in which Gloria once cultivated gladiolus. Or was it gardenias? Something with a G.
He picks up one of three cut-glass tumblers sitting on the table on the patio, left over from tonight's unpleasantness. Why does he have to rehash what was agree on and settle years ago? He did what he promised. DEBT PAID IN FULL should be stamped across his forehead, and he has the paperwork to prove it.
So, what do you think? Read it soon or give it away?
Wonderfully descriptive, read it.
I’d put this in the read pile.
It made me yawn.