And if it doesn’t, that’s your fault.
I was recently home visiting my lovely family, and doing normal things like going to the San Francisco Giants season finale, and watching Buster Posey’s introductory press conference, and drinking Pliny the Elder, and picking blackberries. Things of that nature.
One night, over a delicious (and largely homegrown) dinner with my parents and partner, we got to discussing the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.
For those who don’t know, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is truly delightful contest that, to use its own description, “challenges participants to write an atrocious opening sentence to the worst novel never written.” Its namesake, Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, wrote the novel Paul Clifford, which is famous for the amazing and amazingly bad opening sentence, which begins with seven words we’re all very familiar with: “It was a dark and stormy night.”
Anyway, as we got deeper into the dinner (and the wine), I decided to check on the 2024 winners of this perfect contest. I recommend you do the same … there are so many fantastic creations to read through.
But I didn’t have to make it far on the list to find the sentence I’m here to discuss. After reading the grand prize, I found my way to the winner of the “Adventure” category, won by none other than San Rafael’s own Rex Allen.
Read and enjoy.
As Nils Nordgrund struggled mightily treading water to stay afloat, while grimly watching from a distance the Norwegian oil tanker he captained slowly sink in the treacherously dark and stormy seas off Murmansk—he gave no thought to whether the Giants had any chance at a pennant win this year.
That might be the best piece of Giants writing I read all year. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, Rex. Thank you.