Absinthe - Tapa dura

"A splendid little allegory of the conflict between folkways and modern society--with an exactly appropriate bitter aftertaste." --Kirkus Reviews "[T]his is a story to turn in the light of reflection like a glass of cordial in lamplight." --Booklist "A famous lineage of devoted artists--among others, Manet, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Picasso, and Hemingway--have sought to record the numbingly delicious effects of the drink. Christophe Bataille enters their ranks, offering an elegant, though modest, contribution to the genre, a quietly reverent study of the demise of a lost potion." --Village Voice

Absinthe is the story of Jean Mardet. In his house, a house noted on no official register, in his cellar, among his alembics and flagons, Jean, now known as Jose--priest, magician, sage--celebrates his curious mass, surrounded by his flock, distibuting his wonderful and bitter drink. And to a young boy in the village, Jose seems a wizard, and something more--revealing to the young boy the mysteries of absinthe and mesmerizing the youth with the fabulous stories and emotions that the drink inspires, until March 17, 1915. That day absinthe is outlawed in his country and Jose disappears, taking with him the secrets of his art and of his past. But a boy of nine has discovered the astonishing powers of absinthe, the green enchantress: he has daydreamed amid the chaos of the stills and has learned well at the hand of the old distiller. And in the mysteries of the green liquer has discovered his own past and future.