First Lines: Rupert Everett

By the time he was eight he knew he would never be a Great Actress.

Hello Darling, Are You Working?

Rupert Everett

First Lines: Stanley Elkin

When Dick Gibson was a little boy he was not Dick Gibson.

The Dick Gibson Show

Stanley Elkin

First Lines: Louise Erdrich

We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continue to fall.

Tracks

Louise Erdrich

First Lines: Kim Edwards

The snow started to fall several hours before her labor began.

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

Kim Edwards

First Lines: Tan Twan Eng

I was born with the gift of rain, an ancient soothsayer in an even more ancient temple once told me.

The Gift of Rain

Tan Twan Eng

First Lines: Louise Erdrich

In the year 1896, my great-uncle, one of the first Catholic priests of aboriginal blood, put the call out to his parishioners that they should gather at Saint Joseph’s wearing scapulars and holding missals.

The Plague of Doves

Louise Erdrich

First Lines: Alison Espach

They arrived in bulk, in Black Tie Preferred, in one large clump behind our wooden fence, peering over each other’s shoulders and into our backyard like people at the zoo who wanted a better view of the animals.

The Adults

Alison Espach

First Lines: George Eliot

Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.

Middlemarch

George Eliot

First Lines: Jeffrey Eugenides

I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.

Middlesex

Jeffrey Eugenides

First Lines: Jeffrey Eugenides

On the morning the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide--it was Mary this time, and sleeping pills, like Therese--the two paramedics arrived at the house knowing exactly where the knife drawer was, and the gas oven, and the beam in the basement from which it was possible to tie a rope.

The Virgin Suicides

Jeffrey Eugenides

First Lines: Ralph Ellison

I am an invisible man.

Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison