"It was the summer of 1998 that my neighbor Coleman Silk - who, before retiring two years earlier, had been a classic professor at nearby Athena College for some twenty-odd years as well as serving for sixteen more as the dean of the faculty - confided to me that, at the age of seventy-one, he was having an affair with a thirty-four-year-old cleaning woman who worked down at the college."
That is what I would call an immense first line. It provides a lot of information . . . a whole novel's worth in one sentence. But, in spite of my preferences for short first lines, I have a certain appreciation for this first line. It seems to work. It's somewhat burdensome, to be sure, but all in all, I can appreciate it.
Dost thou disagree?