Competition - Which Book?

Okay, here's a new competition. I'm going to copy out the first paragraph of a book, missing out certain words that would give the game away. Your job is to name the author and say which book it comes from. Simple.

And the prize? You get to write out the first paragraph of a book of your choice yourself, and then we'll see if we can guess it. Here we go:

"..... ..... in ..... in ..... is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. ..... ..... is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine ..... of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches," by which he meant everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men," and he would have meant the same thing."

Not too hard. Which book starts with that paragraph?