A Kings Cross Reader.
Every great city in the world has its famous red light district - they are practically household names, synonymous with vice, sex and sin; Reeperbahn, Forty Second Street, Soho, Pigalle - and Sydney's very own Kings Cross is no exception.
But, like those other famous red light districts, if brothels and cheap restaurants could afford the rent, so could artists, writers and poets. Since the 1890s, the Cross has nurtured Sydney's literati t its ample, bared bosom, either housing them or providing a racy - or even dignified - setting for their work. From Patrick White, Sumner Locke Elliott, and Kenneth Slessor in the early days, through Kate Grenville, David Marr, Frank Moorhouse and John Tranter, to Luke Davies, Justine Ettler, and of course Mandy Sayer and Louis Nowra themselves, writers have lived in , loved and looked at the Cross.
This collection will surprise readers with its breadth and range - Kings Cross wasn't always the bad part of town, as Patrick White and M Barbard Eldershaw reveal. But there are also plenty of stories of vice and sleaze in there as well.
