Escaping Into the Crossword Puzzle

“Part of the appeal of a young woman crossword constructor is that she is focussing her intelligence on a frivolity; she is making her smarts unthreatening and benign. Of course, nothing about my story, neither its reflection of cultural misogyny nor its origins in my willful self-destruction, is benign. Surely this is not what the mothers who approached me at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament had in mind when they tried to set me up with their doctor or lawyer sons.”