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Garrison Spik, the winner of this year's Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest, hails from Washington State, but chose New York for a starring role in his parody. The competition, in which contestants endeavor to pen the most cringe-worthy opening sentence to a non-existent novel, is named for Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, the 19th-century English writer whose novel Paul Clifford opens with the sentence: “It was a dark and stormy night.”
Spik's stinker reads thus: "Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped ‘Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.’"
Not bad, or bad enough, rather, but more appalling specimens await after the jump. (And Clyde Haberman at the Times has more on the contest.)
Romance Winner:
Bill swore the affair had ended, but Louise knew he was lying, after discovering Tupperware containers under the seat of his car, which were not the off-brand containers that she bought to save money, but authentic, burpable, lidded Tupperware; and she knew he would see that woman again, because unlike the flimsy, fake containers that should always be recycled responsibly, real Tupperware must be returned to its rightful owner.
Jeanne Villa
Novato, CA
Romance Runner-Up:
Like a mechanic who forgets to wipe his hands on a shop rag and then goes home, hugs his wife, and gets a grease stain on her favorite sweater - love touches you, and marks you forever.
Beth Fand Incollingo
Haddon Heights, N.J.
Detective Runner-Up:
The hardened detective glanced at his rookie partner and mused that who ever had coined the term "white as a sheet" had never envisioned a bed accessorized with a set of Hazelnut, 500-count Egyptian cotton linens from Ralph Lauren complimented by matching shams and a duvet cover nor the dismembered body of its current occupant.
Russ Winter
Janesville, MN
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‘Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.’
Hee! That last bit really makes the sentence.