The First Two Pages: “If You Can Find Me” by Jeffrey Sweet

In April 2015, B.K. Stevens debuted the blog series “The First Two Pages,” hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work. The series continued until just after her death in August 2017, and the full archive of those essays can be found at Bonnie’s website. In November 2017, the blog series relocated to my website, and the archive of this second stage of the series can be found here.

Jeffrey Sweet offers the final essay this week in a series celebrating the new anthology Every Day A Little Death: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Stephen Sondheim, edited by Josh Pachter and published by Level Best Books. While I’d never say that we saved the best for last (just read the other three essays linked below!), it does seem fitting to close the show (so to speak) with a big finale: an author who knew Sondheim himself, as Sweet explains in his essay. Jeffrey Sweet is a playwright in his own right and the author of several books about the world of theater and the craft of writing plays, including Something Wonderful Right Away: An Oral History of the Second City and the Compass Players, The O’Neill: The Transformation of Modern American Theater, and The Dramatist’s Toolkit: The Craft of the Working Playwright. And for his story, he chose a lesser known work of Sondheim’s: Evening Primrose from the short-lived television series ABC State ’67—and specifically the song “If You Can Find Me, I’m Here.” (And if you’re anything like me, you’ll want to look up the YouTube video of Anthony Perkins singing the song in the show. Let me save you a step; just click here.)

Sweet’s essay below completes our series, but do check out the previous three essays: Brian Cox on “Being Alive,” Fleur Bradley on “Sunday in the Park with George,” and J.A. Hennrikus on “Not a Day Goes By.” And stay tuned for more fun next week—in a new direction!

Please use the arrows and controls at the bottom of the embedded PDF to navigate through the essay. You can also download the essay to read off-line.