"Does anyone come to New York clean?  I'm afraid not.  But crossing the Hudson I thought of crossing Lethe, milky river of forgetting.  I forgot that I had a mother who drove away before I could open my eyes, and a father who moved invisibility through the rooms of our house.  I forgot the parade of people in my life as thin as mesh screens, who couldn't catch whatever it was I wanted to say to them, and I forgot how I drove down dirt roads between desiccated fields, under an oppressive guard of stars, and felt nothing.

Yes, I'd come to escape, but from what?  The twin pillars of football and church?  The low, faded homes on childless cul-de-sacs  Mornings of the Gazette and boxed doughnuts?  The sedated, sentimental middle of it?  It didn't matter.  I would never know exactly, for my life, like most, moved only imperceptibly and definitely forward."
-Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler