First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - The Scenic Route; Binnie Kirshenbaum

Welcome to First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews. 

Each week readers post the first paragraph (or 2) of a book we are reading or plan to read.  This week I selected another book from my Summer Reading List.  This book has sat on my shelf unread since 2009 when I just had to buy it. I still think it sounds pretty good.  

                                                      The Scenic Route; Binnie Kirshenbaum

                                                                Harper Perennial - 2009

1

Here is the story of Henry and me. I wish it had a different end.  It had a good beginning.

That's what I would say.  If Ruby would hear me out, I would say, "This is the story of Henry and me," and no matter that it's of the recent past, past is past, and to tell Ruby this story now would be to call one memory, to travel back, and, as it was, to be with Henry was never quite of our time but of another time better than all that.  A time before my time.  Like how it was in New York during the last days of the Automats, when there was still the Biltmore Hotel and that pink place for ice cream, the name of which escapes me, and Henry, he was not quite of our time either.  "I wish it had a different end," I would say to Ruby. "It had a good beginning."

What do you think read more of pass?

(Amazon Description)

Divorced, alone, and unexpectedly unemployed, Sylvia Landsman flees to Italy, where she meets Henry, a wistful, married, middle-aged expatriate. Taking off on a grand tour of Europe bankrolled with his wife's money, Henry and Sylvia follow a circuitous route around the continent—as Sylvia entertains Henry with stories of her peculiar family and her damaged friends, of dead ducks and Alma Mahler. Her narrative is a tapestry of remembrances and regrets...and her secret shame: a small, cowardly sin of omission. Yet when the opportunity arises for Sylvia and Henry to do something small but brave, the refrain "if only" returns to haunt her, leaving Sylvia with one more story of love lived and lost.