Of all my writing, the essay I wrote about my father’s drinking, and its effects on me and the rest of our family, has elicited the most correspondence from readers. Here's an example that arrived today:

Hi Scott,

Hope you are doing well! I'm a high school student, and I read your piece “Under the Influence.” I wanted to let you know that was honestly an amazing piece of work. Like, after I finished, I sent your story to all of my friends.

I also wanted to ask you a quick question about your opening. It reads: "My father drank. He drank as a gut-punched boxer gasps for breath, as a starving dog gobbles food--compulsively, secretly, in pain and trembling. I use the past tense not because he ever quit drinking but because he quit living." That is honestly the best hook I have read in my entire life, and I wanted to ask how you were able to write a hook as good as that.

I don’t think about the opening of a story or essay as a “hook.” The metaphor strikes me as disrespectful of readers, as if they were fish, to be snagged by the first paragraph and then reeled along. If anyone should be intrigued by the opening sentences, it’s the writer; or at least that has been my experience. I must believe in those first sentences, must feel they provide an honest invitation to all that follows, before I can proceed.

In the case of “Under the Influence,” it was liberating for me to set down those initial three words—“My father drank.” They revealed the family secret, which had been shrouded in shame. Then I was able to bear remembering my father—a former Golden Gloves boxer, who prided himself on his toughness—drinking “compulsively, secretly, in pain and trembling.” I could name his affliction, which was also the family’s affliction, only after he died. While he lived, I kept hoping that he could become sober; but only a heart attack put an end to his drinking.

Through writing “Under the Influence,” I came to realize how deeply his drinking had shaped my character and conscience. In particular, the essay helped me recognize that I had felt guilty, as a child, for failing to heal my father, for failing to bring peace between my parents, for failing to erase this family shame. As an adult, I struggled to let go of that guilt, and simultaneously to let go of my anger toward my father. The anger had always been mixed with a deep love for him, and the writing brought love to the fore.