The allure of absinthe was threefold. One, its history; so many of the great writers and painters that I admired, from Verlaine and Wilde to van Gogh and Picasso, adored absinthe. Two, it was illegal in the United States. Three, better than any other alcohol I know, it created in me that most appealing state of languidness, dissolving muscle and mind so that I didnt really care what happened or didnt happen to me. So, while I enjoyed the way it made colors appear brighter and created halos around anything bright, the way it made the night sky itself fsem to breathe like a giant beast crouched over me, I became hooked on absinthe because it allowed me to escape, the way that reading allowed me to escape.

—Elissa Schappell, from That Sort of Woman, 2003, an essay in The Mrs. Dalloway Reader, edited by Francine Prose, 2003.