First Lines

La Bloga has just posted an interesting piece: the opening lines from a series of famous -- and not so famous -- books by Latinos. The usual suspects are, of course, represented -- Sandra Cisneros, John Rechy, Cristina García -- but this opening line from first time novelist Mario Acevedo really stood out.

I don't like what Operation Iraqi Freedom has done to me. I went to the war a soldier; I came back a vampire. -- The Nymphos of Rocky Flats by Mario Acevedo.

The book's synopsis mentions government conspiracies, Roswell, trained assassins, and "an outbreak of nymphomania among female guards at a plutonium processing plant in Colorado." Not your run of the mill Chicano literature with this one. I'm ordering this book as we speak.