Author Omar El Akkad on what he looks for in first pages - as both a reader and writer
Omar El Akkad is an author and journalist. He was born in Egypt, grew up in Qatar, moved to Canada as a teenager and now lives in the United States. The start of his journalism career coincided with the start of the war on terror, and over the following decade he reported from Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and many other locations around the world. His debut novel, American War, is an international bestseller and has been translated into thirteen languages. It was listed as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, Washington Post, GQ, NPR, Esquire and was selected by the BBC as one of 100 novels that changed our world. His new novel, What Strange Paradise, was released in July 2021 and won the Giller Prize and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award. It was also named a best book of the year by the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR and several other publications.
In your own writing, what importance do the first few pages of a manuscript have? How do you find just the right tone and rhythm, how do you decide what goes first?
I tend to re-work the opening of my stories more than any other section, and sometimes more than all the other parts of the story put together. Of course, getting the tone right is important, but there’s something else, something harder to define. The blank page is always pristine, and as soon as you put words on it, there’s this voice in the back of your head wondering if there wasn’t some better way to start, some better avenue of attack. I’ve written five novel-length manuscripts and countless short stories, and not once have I gotten the opening right on the first try, thematically or narratively. There’s always the place you think your story starts, but then the act of writing it teaches you where it really starts.
More generally, as a reader, what makes a captivating beginning for you? What makes you want to keep reading?
I want to be surprised, but I’m also a sucker for beautiful writing. Whenever those two things intersect, I’m hooked. I also feel like I can tell when the author is passionate about the subject matter, when they’ve marinated in it, rather than just skimmed it. I love it when I open a book and the opening pages make me feel like the author had no choice but to write this exact story, like it possessed them, and the book I’m reading is the exorcism.
What are some of your favorite first pages, books with the best beginnings that have stuck with you?
I adore the prologue of A Death in the Family by James Agee, which is so beautifully written and threaded with longing. The opening of Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut is one of those very rare beginnings that’s at once utterly surprising and yet prepares you perfectly for what’s to come. And virtually every Svetlana Alexievich book opens with an absolute punch to the gut, but Voices from Chernobyl is particularly devastating.