The Price of Authenticity

I’m working on a steampunk novel. Although none of my other novels have yet found a publisher, one of them has been submitted to an agent and I sit with my fingers so tightly crossed that typing is difficult. The Passion of the Titans, as it was originally called, had been accepted for publication only to have the indie press renege on its contract. So it goes.

This isn’t about that.

My current project is all about gears and corsets and gentlemen adventurers. There’s a dirigible, of course. And absinthe. What is steampunk without absinthe?

As the child of a professional alcoholic, controlled substances take on a dark cast in my mind. I overcame my fear of beer over a Guinness in a crowded bar in Boston while studying for a master’s degree in one of the many schools in the city. I still don’t drink to excess, but my former enemy has become an occasional friend.

But absinthe. Once claimed to be psychotropic, it was illegal in the United States until just seven years ago. Now it is known to be just another spirit, strong, but salable. And pricey.

A sense of profound naughtiness accompanies every trip to the liquor store. I’m no street corner lush, and my expenditure on drink is very modest. Shyly I had to ask about absinthe. It isn’t easily found. A single bottle will set you back more than a Jackson.

Feeling like a kid skipping high school for a bender, I drove the bottle home and set it on the counter in wonder, afraid to touch. This was an expensive experiment.

Absinthe is prepared by trickling cold water over a sugar cube set on a special slotted spoon above the liquor. The spoon that came with the bottle was cheap. The smell of anise rose headily from the glass. The green fairy.

One glass and I’m steaming punk like it’s nobody’s business. And given my success rate, it probably isn’t. Someday I’ll finish my steampunk novel. It will go on the shelf next to, I hope, my published version of Boeotian Rhapsody in somebody's reality. Until then, it may be found in the bottom of a glass under a strangely slotted spoon.

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K. Marvin Bruce

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