I began reading Lost Boys years ago and was so turned off by the prologue that I put down the book. Then, in the past year or two, I heard that the rest of the book is nothing like the prologue and that the book is really, really powerful. I had read the short story, and I loved it. So I finally broke down and read the novel, starting at chapter 1.
I read the whole book and loved it. Then I went back and reread the prologue to see if it was as bad as I had remembered it.
SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!
It's nothing like I remembered it. I mean, I did remember a boy watching his parents having sex. But I remembered him walking in by accident and his father forcing him to watch all the way through. I remembered boys pulling down his pants and making fun of him at school (was that The Abyss instead?). What I read last night was a two-page blip introducing Boy and the fact that killings were going on. It's not actually that great of a chapter, in my opinion, but maybe it would be needed to keep the suspense going in the less plot-driven parts for people who hadn't read the short story first, like I had.
Am I crazy, or does this alternate, much more twisted, prologue exist out there somewhere?