Excellent first-hand accounts of bohemian life of the period include Jack Lindsay’s memoir The Roaring Twenties: Literary life in Sydney, New South Wales in the years 1921–26’ (Bodley Head, 1960) and The Queen of Bohemia: The autobiography of Dulcie Deamer (being: The Golden Decade, edited with an introduction by Peter Kirkpatrick; University of Queensland Press, 1998). The character of Bernice Becker shares some biographical elements with Dulcie Deamer, including her costume at the 1923 artists’ ball, her role in the bohemian club I Felici, Letterati, Conoscenti e Lunatici—shortened to ‘the Evil Itchy’—and her successful career as a playwright and journalist.
For a sense of the atmosphere of intellectual and political life in Sydney in the 1920s, I reread Christina Stead’s brilliant Seven Poor Men of Sydney (Melbourne University Press, 2015). The most useful and detailed scholarly account of Sydney bohemian life is Peter Kirkpatrick’s The Sea Coast of Bohemia: Literary life in Sydney’s Roaring Twenties (University of Queensland Press, 1992) with a more generalised account of the period in Tony Moore’s Dancing With Empty Pockets: Australia’s bohemians (Murdoch Books, 2012).
Elizabeth Bay House (EBH) was divided into artist squats from 1931 to 1935 and into bedsits in the 1940s (see ‘Artists in the House’ and ‘Ballrooms to Bedsitters’ panels at EBH and Scott Carlin’s online catalogue essay for the 2003 exhibition Kings Cross: Bohemian life in Sydney, published in Insites, Spring 2003). The raucous party scene on the staircase is inspired by a Donald Friend sketch from July 1942. The brilliant sculptor Rayner Hoff makes a guest appearance at this party (Deborah Beck, Rayner Hoff: The life of a sculptor, NewSouth Books, 2017).
To acquaint myself with the Depression, I read Wendy Lowenstein’s Weevils in the Flour: An oral record of the 1930s Depression in Australia (Scribe, 1978), Ruth Park’s The Harp in the South (Penguin, 2009), relevant chapters in Thomas Keneally’s Australians: Flappers to Vietnam (Allen & Unwin, 2014) and Gerald Stone’s 1932: A hell of a year (Pan Macmillan, 2006) among other sources. A different perspective is found in Drew Cottle’s article ‘The Rich in the Depression (Domestic service in Woollahra during the Depression years, 1928–1934)’ in Bowyang 1 (1), 1979 and 1 (2), 1979.
To understand the legacy of World War I for returned veterans and their families, I was fortunate to discover Marina Larsson’s moving Shattered Anzacs: Living with the scars of war (UNSW Press, 2009). For the activities and culture of the Australian Communist Party—which Hugh Evans joins early—I read relevant chapters in Stuart Macintyre’s The Reds (Allen & Unwin, 1998). Joan admires the charismatic communist speaker and writer Jean Devanny. I read Carole Ferrier’s excellent biography Jean Devanny: Romantic revolutionary (MUP, 1999) and Devanny’s out-of-print (and banned) Kings Cross novel The Virtuous Courtesan (Macaulay, 1935).
For background on the New Guard, I read Andrew Moore’s Secret Army and the Premier: Conservative paramilitary organisations in New South Wales 1930–32 (UNSW Press, 1989) and Keith Amos’s The New Guard Movement 1931–1935 (MUP, 1976). A more recent challenge to Moore’s views is offered in Richard Evans’s article ‘A Menace to This Realm: The New Guard and the New South Wales police, 1931–32’ in History Australia 5 (3), 2008.
For background on the razor wars, particularly Phil ‘the Jew’ Jeffs, a shadowy, menacing figure in my story, I read Larry Writer’s Razor: A true story of slashers, gangsters, prostitutes and sly grog (Pan Macmillan, 2002) and Alfred W. McCoy’s Drug Traffic: Narcotics and organized crime in Australia (Harper & Row, 1980). Leigh Straw’s The Worst Woman in Sydney: The life and crimes of Kate Leigh (NewSouth Books, 2016) also proved entertaining and informative.
To immerse myself in the criminal class of 1920s and 1930s Sydney, I spent hours studying the haunting photos and reading the stories in Peter Doyle’s City of Shadows: Sydney police photographs 1912–1948 (with Caleb Williams, Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, 2005) and Crooks Like Us (Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, 2009). I also visited the exhibition Underworld: Mugshots from the Roaring Twenties, curated by Nadia Campbell at the Museum of Sydney in July 2018.
As a basis for my real-life character Special Sergeant Lillian Armfield, I enjoyed Leigh Straw’s lively Lillian Armfield (Hachette Australia, 2018). For the treatment of women as criminals in the 1920s, I was impressed by the beautifully written The Suitcase Baby by Tanya Bretherton (Hachette Australia, 2018). For checking my manuscript for any errors in police protocols and procedures, I owe sincere thanks to recently retired Detective Senior Sergeant John McGee, who also lent me his copy of True Blue: 150 years of service and sacrifice of the NSW Police Force by Patrick Lindsay (HarperCollins, 2012).
Joan works as a subeditor for the popular weekly magazine The Australian Woman’s Mirror (the ‘Between Ourselves’ column was real) and has a friend and mentor in writer Zora Cross. I am grateful to Cathy Perkins for her article ‘Nothing is Wasted’ (Meanjin, Winter 2017), which drew my attention to Zora Cross, an ‘undeservedly forgotten’ poet, journalist and novelist and to the many profiles of women writers she wrote for the Mirror. I also read Perkins’s MA thesis (University of Sydney, 2016), now published as The Shelf Life of Zora Cross (Monash University Publishing, 2019). To browse TROVE’s digitised full collection of the Mirror (1924–1961), visit https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-389050376; Zora’s profiles were written under the pseudonym Bernice May. For another view of the challenges of women writers’ lives, I read Ann-Marie Priest’s A Free Flame: Australian women writers and vocation in the twentieth century (University of Western Australia Publishing, 2018) with case studies of Gwen Harwood, Dorothy Hewett, Christina Stead and Ruth Park.
Hannah Forsyth’s article ‘Sex, Seduction, and Sirens in Love: Norman Lindsay’s women’ (Antipodes 19 (1), June 2005) is a provocative examination of Norman Lindsay’s views of bohemian women including Zora Cross and Dulcie Deamer. Also very useful was ‘From “Girl Gladness” to “Honied Madness”: Pleasure and the girl in the poetry of Zora Cross’ by Ann Vickery (Association for the Study of Australian Literature, 22nd Conference, 2001).
On attitudes to female sexual desire in Australia in this period, articles by Dr Lisa Featherstone were criticaally important: ‘Rethinking Female Pleasure: Purity and desire in early twentieth-century Australia’ in Women’s History Review 21 (5), November 2012, with references to Zora Cross’s erotic poetry, and ‘Sex Educating the Modern Girl: The formation of new knowledge in interwar Australia’, Journal of Australian Studies 34 (4), 2010. I also read relevant chapters in Garry Wotherspoon’s Gay Sydney: A history (NewSouth Publishing, 2016). The historic figure of sex reformer and eugenicist Marion Piddington, aunt to Eleanor Dark, was drawn from Diana H. Wyndham’s PhD thesis ‘Striving for National Fitness: Eugenics in Australia 1910s to 1930s’ (University of Sydney, July 1996).
The TROVE digitised newspaper archive proved indispensable as usual, as did the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB). The Dictionary of Sydney provided insights into many subjects including artists’ balls (Deborah Beck, 2013) and Delia Falconer’s 2014 entry ‘A City of One’s Own: Women’s Sydney’.
My Ladies’ Bacchus Club scene was in part informed by scholarship into Women’s Dionysian Initiation Rites at https://www.ahomeforsoul.com/single-post/2015/01/12/Touching-Ecstasy-Dionysian-Womens-Initiation-Rites-at-Pompeii
For details of the Sydney Harbour Bridge opening ceremony, I read relevant material in Peter Spearritt’s The Sydney Harbour Bridge: A life (UNSW Press, 2007) and relied on NFSA archival footage of newsreels and photos in the State Library of NSW.
Many online resources aided research on topics as diverse as fashion, free love, street photography, Mockbell’s coffee empire, early crime writing in Australia, contraception, censorship, blackmail, ‘chocolate boys’ in cinemas, Sydney tram routes and car ferries, the Haven Valley Scenic Theatre in Castlecrag and 1920–30s slang.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I owe thanks to writer Patti Miller and her husband Tony Reeder for a house-swap in their Kings Cross flat
over an Easter long weekend in 2016, which gave me time to thoroughly explore the Cross, Potts Point, Elizabeth Bay and Woolloomooloo and take hundreds of photographs to jog my memory and soak up the atmosphere. I am also grateful to my own neighbours, distinguished historians Richard White and Catherine Bishop, who have generously allowed me to stay in their Potts Point flat for later field trips in the Cross. Thanks also to Richard for regular chats that provided me with some excellent research leads for this novel.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to prolific journalist and author Sue Williams, long-time resident of the Cross, for her valuable local contacts, who found me Justin Miller of Justin Miller Art. My sincerest thanks to Justin Miller for his gracious hospitality and generous personal tour of his flat and the environs of the gorgeous Macleay Regis apartment block on Macleay Street. Nothing can substitute for experiencing a location in person.
I am indebted to recently retired Detective Senior Sergeant John McGee for his thorough checking of my manuscript for any errors of police culture, protocol and procedure. I enjoyed our long and informative talk over coffee about everything from the 1968 Glenfield Siege to the representations of police in fiction and drama.
I am deeply grateful to my agent Selwa Anthony for her unfailing trust and support and to my publisher at Allen & Unwin, Annette Barlow, for her ongoing commitment to my writing. Thanks to Christa Munns for a thorough and thoughtful structural edit, and to Ali Lavau for her rigorous and amazing ‘hands-on’ copyedit. I am delighted by the gorgeous and clever cover art of Nada Backovic, which perfectly captures the ambience of the novel. My thanks to the hard-working team at A&U who continue to demonstrate their commitment to Australian storytelling.
I wish to convey my gratitude also to all the guests who have attended my public lectures, many of them history enthusiasts and practitioners, including members of Local History Societies and National Trust branches. They often take the time to share personal stories and valuable historical information with me after my talks. Thanks also to all those readers who have sent me fan mail, much of which adds new dimensions to my own research.
I dedicate this book to my sister Verity with whom I share a passion for books, fiction and non-fiction; I enjoy our regular conversations about what we are reading, and I value her judgement and support. She gave me a magnificent silk scarf with a dragonfly motif to celebrate the launch of The Opal Dragonfly: I wear it with pride!
The research and writing of my three novels would not have been possible without the practical support as well as intellectual and passionate companionship of my brilliant and talented wife, Claire Corbett. She is a sublime writer in her own right and has also become a much-loved teacher of creative writing, a fiction editor for Overland, and a valued Varuna board member and assessor. I am grateful every day that I am so lucky to have the benefit of her insights and to share our deep love of books and reading. Quite a few discussions over morning coffee and on our local walks have been critical to the development of this manuscript. For however long we share this journey together as writers, I feel blessed.
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