Before I start a book, I try to commit to something significant: a prologue, a chapter. If I’m feeling particularly leisurely, I’ll set aside an hour and read 50 pages, knowing that, once I’ve read them, I’ll be able to make a decision as to whether I’ll continue on to the end. I open the book, glance ahead at the first pages and look for a natural break. I have a goal now. I can start reading.
Some writers like to get you going with short, three-page chapters, just to nudge you along and keep you coming back. I salute them. These people are writing for me. Some don’t bother with chapter numbers or names and only have section breaks. It tears me up to see such folly. Where are the bragging rights. Did I finish a chapter? What have I achieved? I read a bunch of paragraphs between little dots.
Some books start with an introduction by another author, and I’ve been betrayed by this enough to avoid them altogether. Ann Patchett did me dirty in her introduction to The All of It by Jeannette Haien and almost ruined the book for me. But here today, Robin Wall Kimmerer is doing it right.
She starts Braiding Sweetgrass with a short two page preface, and the first chapter has a title that is a story unto itself. I’m about to sit down to read “Skywoman Falling,” and when I’m done with this first chapter, I’ll know the story of a woman, from the sky, who fell. This first chapter also happens to measure seven tight little pages. That’s a cup of tea, friends. Put on the water, someone thought of you.
febe reads 