Like this one, from one of the greatest books ever written?I am not a fan of those trite "let's introduce a character with a first name and it'll be a superfun mystery" who they are beginnings that are all over every single one of these threads whenever we do them
Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. —Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
That's a good book and a decent first sentence in my opinion. Couple things, though. One, that sentence is almost too famous -- a lot of people know it but not the book. Two, it set the standard for the stuff I was talking about above. If you can't beat that, don't even try, because you're just riffing. Three, it's got some depth and -- most importantly in my opinion -- it establishes the passage of time. Tells the reader a lot of things about the character's life that "John did something weird and I, the author, am temporarily passing it off as completely normal" doesn't. I'm not a fan of the ol' clocks striking 13, either, in case you were going to ask. It's much more effective on a reread.