First Line Friday: On the Road

It’s been a while since we’ve done one of these, but today’s first line is, in my opinion, kind of a stinker, even though it leads into one of my favorite books. The first two lines, as a matter of fact, are bits of back story we don’t really need, and that don’t figure in the rest of the novel. But that third line , now, that third line is great. If you ask me, it is the rightful heir to the first line throne. And if I were Kerouac’s editor, I would have lopped off the first two and made that one my opener:

“I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won’t bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead. With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road. Before that I’d often dreamed of going West to see the country, always vaguely planning and never taking off.”

What do you think? Am I off here? Of course I'm not...