Brighton Rock by Graham Greene -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Brighton Rock by Graham Greene

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him.

-- Brighton Rock by Graham Greene. Wow, that's some opening sentence! It sure got my attention. 

Graham Greene is one of my very favorite authors. He left a legacy of 26 novels (including two early ones that he “repudiated” and haven’t been in print since), several volumes of short stories, poetry, plays, screenplays, autobiographies, travel books, essays, criticism, two biographies, general nonfiction, and even children’s books.

I haven’t come close to reading, or even collecting, all of Greene’s books. I would like to read at least all his (existing) fiction. So far, I’ve read 11 of his novels and short story collections and one book of travel writing. 

One of my favorite Greene quotes is:

One’s life is more formed, I sometimes think, by books than by human beings: it is out of books one learns about love and pain at second hand. Even if we have the happy chance to fall in love, it is because we have been conditioned by what we have read . . .


― from Travels with My Aunt

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Brighton Rock:

She didn't even know the name of a drink. In Nelson Place from which she had emerged like a mole into the daylight of Snow's restaurant and the Palace Pier, she had never known a boy with enough money to offer her a drink.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Graham Greene's chilling exposé of violence and gang warfare in the pre-war underworld is a classic of its kind. Pinkie, a teenage gangster on the rise, is devoid of compassion or human feeling, despising weakness of both the spirit and the flesh. Responsible for the razor slashes that killed mob boss Kite and also for the death of Hale, a reporter who threatened the livelihood of the mob, Pinkie is the embodiment of calculated evil. As a Catholic, however, Pinkie is convinced that his retribution does not lie in human hands. He is therefore not prepared for Ida Arnold, Hale's avenging angel.