Love machine romps through the seamy side of Sydney
BOOK REVIEW
To see the world through another’s eyes is a gift sometimes bestowed by literature. It was so for me reading Love Machine as it is set in Kings Cross over the same period I have been living in and writing about the place.
The book pulls no punches in its matter-of-fact recounting of the seamy side of life as seen by a young guy working the graveyard shift in a Kings Cross sex shop. The title refers not to the veteran strip venue but a deluxe ride-on sex toy for women.
Spencer, the first-person narrator, must deal with drug addicts, thugs, psychos, police, homeless sex workers, a seemingly heartless boss and The Choker (who likes to hang himself with his belt nightly while watching porn in the wank booths). In Spencer’s world, blowjobs are as much a currency as money, or simply a token of affection between friends. But, unlike the tabloid media, moralistic politicians and NIMBYs, the author does not judge the misfits who bring his tale to life. Rather, he portrays their complexity, teasing out their virtues as well as romping through their vices.
Spencer and those closest to him live out in the ’burbs of the west and southwest, which are shown in vivid prose to be as bleak and dysfunctional as the Cross. Bankstown, Revesby and St Marys produce the misfits who flee to the Cross, victims of broken families and hostile step-parents, victims of the pointless war on drugs and of welfare culture. This illustrates a point I have been making – the problems of the Cross are simply the problems of the suburbs made visible.
But the book portrays the Cross as more than a refugee camp. Here the misfits, individuals and eccentrics can come out in the open, can be themselves in a tolerant environment, free of hypocrisy and judgement. They create a unique community which, while rarely looking pretty, contains far more loyalty, tolerance and mutual support than you will find in the ’burbs. This is why street upgrades, police crackdowns, council regulation and other attempts to “normalise” the place have always been doomed. They are mere cosmetic fantasies dashing themselves against the social forces which create the place, its denizens and its customers.
The book describes, from the inside, the politically motivated police raid on the sex shops of the Cross a couple of years ago. All the X-rated videos were confiscated by police who then had to watch them in a search for child pornography which was the predictable pretext for the raids. None was found, but it left Sydney in the ludicrous position where people could by their porn anywhere but in its red light district. Locals will recognise Radio John and the late Pal among the characters.
But for those who stay in the suburbs, there is always Hillsong. Love Machine takes us into its fevered rock-n-roll sales pitch which in spite of its syrupy commercialism still helps some people rebuild their lives.
Love Machine also takes aim at “Nobs with too much money” who come to the Cross to “live out their New York Fantasies”, as well as the ceaseless ruination and renovation of venues like Barons and the Bourbon and Beefsteak to attract more “nobs on chrome stools with ten-dollar beers”.
Spencer, our anti-hero, is not normal either, obsessed with making a video version of Genesis and Gethsemane starring plastic blow-up midgets and figurines he has amputated and reassembled. His meanderings through the mayhem of Sydney’s underbelly recall Rob, the narrator of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. But this is a lot edgier, describing a Sydney we all touch but rarely acknowledge.
Books set in or about Kings Cross add up to a large and collectible genre, which cannot be said about Pymble or Bankstown. This one is set to become a notable addition, better than most and well worth a read. This household found it “un-putdownable”, high praise for a first novel. Hopefully a few timid readers who get their thrills vicariously through such books might come to understand that the Cross is Sydney’s essential safety valve, and attempts to “normalise” it are sheer ignorance.
Love machine by Clinton Caward, Hamish Hamilton/Penguin. Paperback.
by Michael Gormly
