First Lines: Dennis Lehane

When Sean Devine and Jimmy Marcus were kids, their fathers worked together at the Coleman Candy plant and carried the stench of warm chocolate back home with them.

Mystic River

Dennis Lehane

First Lines: Joe R. Lansdale

On the afternoon it rained frogs, sun perch, and minnows, Sunset discovered she could take a beating good as Three-Fingered Jack.

Sunset and Sawdust

Joe R. Lansdale

First Lines: Sinclair Lewis

Elmer Gantry was drunk.

Elmer Gantry

Sinclair Lewis

First Lines: Primo Levi

Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument.

The Drowned and the Saved

Primo Levi

First Lines: Stieg Larsson

It happened every year, was almost a ritual.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Stieg Larsson

First Lines: Sinclair Lewis

The towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods.

Babbitt

Sinclair Lewis

First Lines: Janice Y.K. Lee

It started as an accident.

The Piano Teacher

Janice Y.K. Lee

First Lines: Lois Lowry

It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened.

The Giver

Lois Lowry

First Lines: Jack London

Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tidewater dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.

The Call of the Wild

Jack London

First Lines: Louis L'Amour

He rolled the cigarette in his lips, liking the taste of the tobacco, squinting his eyes against the glare.

Hondo 

Louis L’Amour

First Lines: Sinclair Lewis

On a hill by the Mississippi where Chippewas camped two generations ago, a girl stood in relief against the cornflower blue of Northern sky. 

Main Street

Sinclair Lewis

First Lines: Sinclair Lewis

The driver of the wagon swaying through forest and swamp of the Ohio wilderness was a ragged girl of fourteen.

Arrowsmith

Sinclair Lewis

First Lines: David Lodge

High, high above the North Pole, on the first day of 1969, two professors of English Literature approached each other at a combined velocity of 1200 miles per hour.

Changing Places

David Lodge

First Lines: Madeleine L'Engle

It was a dark and stormy night.

A Wrinkle in Time

Madeleine L’Engle

First Lines: Louis L'Amour

For seven days in the spring of 1882 the man called Shalako heard no sound but the wind  . . . .

Shalako

Louis L’Amour

First Lines: Ursula K. Le Guin

I’ll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination.

The Left Hand of Darkness

Ursula K. Le Guin