Salt River’s opening

Jenn and I were talking about writerly stuff the other day—present tense, second person, POV, and so on—and I was reminded of something that struck me about the first paragraph of James Sallis’s Salt River. Here it is.

Sometimes you just have to see how much music you can make with what you have left. Val told me that, seconds before I heard the crash of her wineglass against the porch floor, looked up, and only then became aware of the shot that preceded it, two years ago now.

Sallis begins with the sort of “a shot rang out” opening that has been so overused, especially in crime fiction, that student writers are cautioned against it.

But at the very end, he does something different. Having put us right in the moment, with the words “two years ago now” he propels that moment into the past. You can almost hear the whoosh as it goes by. Message: Val died two years ago, but in the mind of the narrator (displaced Memphis ex-cop John Turner) that moment is still fresh, still happening.