The Booker Prize Shortlist 2020 – novel openings

“The day was flat. That morning his mind had abandoned him and left his body
wandering down below. The empty body went listlessly through its routine, pale and
vacant-eyed under the fluorescent strip lights, as his soul floated above the aisles and
thought only of tomorrow. Tomorrow was something to look forward to.

Shuggie was methodical in setting up for his shift. All the pots of oily dips and spreads
were decanted into clean trays. The edges were wiped free of any splashes that would
go brown quickly and ruin the illusion of freshness. The sliced hams were artfully
arranged with fake parsley sprigs, and the olives were turned so that the viscous juice
slid like mucus over their green skins.

Ann McGee had the brass neck to call in sick again that morning, leaving him with the
thankless task of running his deli counter and her rotisserie stand all alone. No day
ever started well with six dozen raw chickens, and today of all days, it was stealing the
sweetness out of his daydreams.”

Douglas Stuart. “Shuggie Bain”

“It was a cool evening in late summer when Wallace, his father dead for several weeks,
decided that he would meet his friends at the pier after all. The lake was dimpled with
white waves. People coveted these last blustery days of summer before the weather
turned cold and mercurial. The air was heavy with their good times as the white
people scattered across the tiered patios, pried their mouths apart, and beamed their
laughter into each other’s faces. Overhead, gulls drifted easy as anything.

Wallace stood on an upper platform looking down into the scrum, trying to find his
particular group of white people, thinking also that it was still possible to turn back,
that he could go home and get on with his evening. It had been a couple of years since
he had gone to the lake with his friends, a period of time that embarrassed him
because it seemed to demand an excuse and he did not have one. It might have had
something to do with the crowds, the insistence of other people’s bodies, the way the
birds circled overhead, then dive-bombed the tables to grab food or root around at
their feet as though even they were socializing. Threats from every corner. There was
also the matter of the noise, the desperate braying of everyone talking over everyone
else, the bad music, the children and dogs, the radios from the frats down the
lakeshore, the car stereos in the streets, the shouting mass of hundreds of lives
disagreeing.

The noise demanded vague and strange things from Wallace.

Brandon Taylor. “Real Life”.

“1974
SHE DOES NOT WANT TO REMEMBER BUT SHE IS here and memory is gathering bones.
She has come by foot and by bus to Addis Ababa, across terrain she has chosen to
forget for nearly forty years. She is two days early but she will wait for him, seated on
the ground in this corner of the train station, the metal box on her lap, her back
pressed against the wall, rigid as a sentinel. She has put on the dress she does not wear
every day. Her hair is neatly braided and sleek and she has been careful to hide the
long scar that puckers at the base of her neck and trails over her shoulder like a broken
necklace.

In the box are his letters, le lettere, ho sepolto le mie lettere, è il mio segreto, Hirut,
anche il tuo segreto. Segreto, secret, meestir. You must keep them for me until I see
you again. Now go. Vatene. Hurry before they catch you.

There are newspaper clippings with dates spanning the course of the war between her
country and his. She knows he has arranged them from the start, 1935, to nearly the
end, 1941.”

Maaza Mengiste. “The Shadow King”.

“There is a fish in the mirror. The mirror is above the washbasin in the corner of your
hostel room. The tap, cold only in the rooms, is dripping. Still in bed, you roll onto your
back and stare at the ceiling. Realizing your arm has gone to sleep, you move it back
and forth with your working hand until pain bursts through in a blitz of pins and
needles. It is the day of the interview. You should be up. You lift your head and fall
back onto the pillow. Finally, though, you are at the sink.

There, the fish stares back at you out of purplish eye sockets, its mouth gaping, cheeks
drooping as though under the weight of monstrous scales. You cannot look at yourself.
The dripping tap annoys you, so you tighten it before you turn it on again. A perverse
action. Your gut heaves with a dull satisfaction.

“Go-go-go!”
It is a woman knocking at your door.
“Tambudzai,” she says. “Are you coming?”
It is one of your hostelmates, Gertrude.
“Tambudzai,” she calls again. “Breakfast?”
Footsteps tap away. You imagine her sighing, feeling at least a little low, because you
did not answer.
“Isabel,” the woman calls now, turning her attention to another hostel dweller.
“Yes, Gertrude,” Isabel answers.
A crash tells you you have not paid sufficient attention. Your elbow nudged the mirror
as you brushed your teeth. Or did it? You are not sure.”

Tsitsi Dangarembga. “This Mournable Body”.