David Goodis

Philadelphia native David Goodis wrote hardboiled stories about downtrodden men and women.  He worked  briefly in Hollywood before coming back to Philadelphia where he continued to work until his early death. His short stories and novels have been adapted by filmmakers around the world yet Goodis himself lived in relative obscurity.

Marking the 300th anniversary of the publication of the first novel in English, this essay examines different forms of opening sentence in English and American novels.  It is arranged into five sections, each dealing with a different aspect of the novel's opening.
Working from a rich range of examples, the first two sections consider how certain authors start their novels running, unpacking their first sentences to show the complex information being communicated to the reader.  Authors include Aldous Huxley, Thomas Pynchon, J.D. Salinger, Sam Selvon, Ross McDonald, John Grisham, Raymond Chandler, Graham Greene, Angela Carter, Kenneth Fearing, Sylvia Plath, Philip Kerr & John Marsden.
The next section of the essay turns to how the opening passages operate in four major novels, analysing the first paragraphs of 'Dark Passage' by David Goodis, 'A Farewell to Arms' by Ernest Hemingway, 'Good Morning, Midnight' by Jean Rhys, & 'Persuasion' by Jane Austen.
The final sections of the essay quickly trace the historical appearance of rival forms of opening passage, beginning with ' Robinson  Crusoe' and 'A Journal of he Plague Year' by Daniel Defoe, then moving through 'Pamela' by Samuel Richardson, 'Joseph Andrews' by Henry Fielding, 'The Mysteries of Udolpho' by Ann Radcliffe, 'The Monk' by Matthew Lewis, then finishing with 'Hard Times' by Charles Dickens.