Editor’s Introduction

This issue’s collection of novel openings include several that begin in one way, only to turn dramatically into something else later in the novel—as revealed by the Authors’ Statements. In my view, one of the most enjoyable ways to read a novel is to go into it blind, without seeking any information about it beforehand—no blurbs, no reviews—and allowing these twists to unfold with all the surprise that the writer intended. That is how I approach every opening submitted to Embark, and so in the following descriptions I will do my best to gesture only vaguely at the twists ahead.

THE SILENCE OF FRIENDS, by Abigail Seltzer, begins with an introduction by the narrator, a discredited psychoanalyst, which establishes from the outset a catastrophe to come. The novel then flashes back to his training in 1980s London and his first meeting with an enigmatic Argentinian, one of his fellow trainees. The novel’s title tells us to pay close attention the friendship between these two men, but equally interesting is the narrator’s troubled relationship with his father, a man obsessed with bringing war criminals to belated justice. As with all good novels, there are many threads to untangle here, and each promises to be a fascinating story.

The title of Allison Cundiff’s novel, THE MYSTERIOUS WOMEN OF J ROAD, similarly adds an intriguing layer to the book’s opening, since it features only male characters. A group of young men have been stricken by an inexplicable illness after hunting on the wrong side of a creek in the Ozarks, and one of them dies. The county sheriff, charged with unraveling the case, visits the dead boy’s father, a reclusive veteran. Cundiff provides lyrical back stories for both the veteran and his son. Within only a few pages, she presents the reader with two fully-fledged characters, and the power of her writing, along with the promise of the title, makes the reader eager for more.

In WOLF LAKE ELEGY, Beth Sherman opens with an immersive portrait of 19th-century London as seen from the perspective of the poor: no ball gowns and jewels in sight; instead there are mud-larks, street vendors, prostitutes, and an herbalist named Rose who struggles to pay her rent. Before the close of the first chapter, however, Sherman has thrown us her first curve-ball by changing the setting: Rose is summoned to a country manor to treat an ailing horse, and the story shifts away from its initial urban bustle. The Author’s Statement reveals several more twists to come, but already Sherman has established her firm grasp on the unmistakable Victorian atmosphere.

Where settings are concerned, Robert Runté, in THE ASSURANCE, goes furthest by staging his opening on a distant planet. This gripping science-fiction thriller sets its fast pace from the first paragraphs, when the protagonist, Duncan—a humble spaceship captain who hopes one day to become a college professor—is summoned to Base Command and learns of an imminent threat to the entire planet. Thrust into a military crisis and forced to assume an authoritative role for which he feels entirely unsuited, Duncan gains our sympathy by being as dismayed and panicky as we would feel in a similar situation—though his resourcefulness is immediately impressive.

Charles Rocha also plunges his protagonist into confusion in THE SHADES OF SILVERTOWN, but this novel plays with reality in a very different way. Its initial pages, which suggest a tale of corporate despair, are belied by what happens next: after driving into the arid back country of his state with the intention of suffocating himself in an abandoned silver mine, the protagonist stumbles upon two men dressed as old-time cowboys, who find his talk of GPS and SUVs as baffling as he finds their talk of guns and horses. The excerpt closes as he enters the dilapidated settlement near the mine, and by now the reader will suspect that “ghost town,” in this novel, can be taken literally.

Providing a third take on the parameters of real life, Kristin Harley, in BLUFF CREEK, tackles the idea of monsters in our midst. Rather than science fiction or a ghost tale, Harley presents us with marvels that might be hoaxes, opening with a vivid scene of a young girl glimpsing an ominous, man-like form in a block of ice at a carnival. Years later, this girl, now an adult at loose ends, is still drawn to the legends of creatures who live on the fringes of our world, and she convinces a skeptical scientist to join her on an expedition into Bigfoot country. After the opening pages, the possibility that they will indeed find monsters is as tantalizing for the book’s readers as it is for its characters.

Nathan Rohan, in THE PANTHEON, pulls his readers into a reality that, while instantly exciting, remains undefined: is it the future? an alternate version of our world? a different universe altogether? The novel opens with a young woman on a beach who spots a ship on the horizon. She races into town to announce the thrilling news, and we soon learn that the ship is coming for her best friend, an athlete of superhuman strength, who seems deeply ambivalent about being summoned to “the Academy.” Questions abound in these opening pages, but Rohan’s characters sparkle with familiar life, enabling the reader to become invested in a strange and beguiling world.

WHAT WE CARRY, by Jacqueline Guidry, stays firmly within our current reality and yet presents a world that, for most of us, is unknown: the inner lives of security officers working at an airport. With riveting nuance, Guidry’s opening offers snapshots of five different officers employed in the Kansas City International Airport, each one meticulously carrying out the duties of the day while grappling with inner demons, family struggles, professional rivalries, and interpersonal relationships. Here is proof—if proof is needed—that every job can be enthralling if you comprehend its challenges, while every individual is fascinating when viewed from within.

Dan Sato, in FRANK MATSURA, offers a detailed introduction to another job that most readers will be unfamiliar with—the grueling work of a salmon cannery—while telling the inspiring story of a real-life immigrant to America who became a famous photographer. Matsura traveled from Japan to Alaska in 1901, and the novel opens with his arrival. Like his fellow travelers, he is overwhelmed both by the sudden immersion in a new culture and by the pervasive prejudice they encounter. Though Matsura has the advantages of a university education and his camera, Sato’s opening vividly establishes the many challenges he will need to overcome to find success in his new country.

In WHAT COMES UNDONE, David Fettig also explores the experiences of people struggling on the underside of the American dream, in this case farmers and young women during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Fettig, however, opens not with a sympathetic character but with a deeply unsettling and powerful scene of a man killing an entire farming family. The story then shifts to a young woman traveling by train to stay with that same family, and her troubles—poverty, exploitation, and unemployment—seem yet more desperate for the readers, who know the horrors she is about to face.

Using a wide range of settings, both in our world and beyond it, the authors of these ten novels lead their readers on surprising and exciting journeys, filled with unexpected shifts and events that dramatically change their stories and their characters. I was engrossed by each of these ten openings, and I hope you will be too!

Ursula DeYoung, Founding Editor

Table of Contents

THE MYSTERIOUS WOMEN OF J ROAD – Allison Cundiff
WHAT COMES UNDONE – David Fettig
WHAT WE CARRY – Jacqueline Guidry
BLUFF CREEK – Kristin Harley
THE SHADES OF SILVERTOWN – Charles Rocha
THE PANTHEON – Nathan Rohan
THE ASSURANCE – Robert Runté
FRANK MATSURA – Dan Sato
THE SILENCE OF FRIENDS – Abigail Seltzer
WOLF LAKE ELEGY – Beth Sherman