Hunh

Overwritten or not? You decide.

4. The Ask by Sam Lipsyte
Best opening passage that’s been excerpted in a zillion places over the past few weeks because the book’s just out (and amazing!) but what the hell, let’s hear it one more time, it’s that good:
“America, said Horace, the office temp, was a run-down and demented pimp. Our republic’s whoremaster days were through. Whither that frost-nerved, diamond-fanged hustler who’d stormed Normandy, dick-smacked the Soviets, turned out such firm emerging market flesh? Now our nation slumped in the corner of the pool hall, some gummy coot with a pint of mad dog and soggy yellow eyes, just another mark for the juvenile wolves.”

The rest of 'em here.

Oh, snap.

9. Murphy by Samuel Beckett
Most Beckettian opening to a Beckett novel:
“The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.”