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This week's competition, in which you have to identify a book from its opening sentence, is from a novel that journeys to the heart of disaffected blues America...

"I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness... that had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead... "

The winner receives a ?20 book token and
the closing date is October 20.

Entries should be sent to

First Impressions
The THES
Admiral House, 66-68 East Smithfield
London E1 9XY

faxed to 0171-782 3300
or emailed to theschat@thes.co.uk

The winner of last week's competition was P. Brown, secretary of The British Academy, London, who correctly identified Isaiah Berlin's Karl Marx .