Original artwork, not a still
The Graveyard Book ‧ 2008
There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Seven plain words give a hand, a knife and the dark, and leave the victim and the killer to the next sentence. It is a children's-book opening that does not flinch, a promise the book is going to be about danger before it is about comfort. The rest then turns it round: the same night that starts in horror ends with a boy raised by the dead, which is why this first line is the one people quote.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for The Graveyard BookShow the scene
The first sentence of The Graveyard Book (2008), before any character is named. The story it opens is about the man Jack, who murders three members of a family but fails to kill the youngest, a boy of about eighteen months. The toddler crawls out of the house and up a hill to a graveyard, where the ghosts take him in and name him Nobody Owens, Bod for short. Gaiman had the idea in 1985, watching his two-year-old son pedal a tricycle round a graveyard, and thought of writing something like The Jungle Book there.
Sources (2)
- Wikiquote: Opening linesentry for The Graveyard Book by Neil GaimanReference checked
- Wikipedia: The Graveyard BookPlot; Concept and developmentReference checked
Context reviewed
