LOVE
MACHINE
Clinton Caward
Kings Cross is
a circus of desire and Spencer has a ringside seat.
From the
underground sex shop where he works full-time, he sees it all: the bucks' parties
and street walkers, the drunks and the judges, the bouncers, the trannies, the
chokers. The whole world comes through the door and Spencer has what they're looking
for.
Spencer sells sex - or at least its paraphernalia - but
his own desires are less straightforward. He makes figurines of Jesus with tentacles,
writes poetry and plans a movie set in the Garden of Gethsemane starring blow-up
dolls.
Moving between his dysfunctional family, the shop with
its seedy cast of muscle-boys and amateur criminals, and the misfits who populate
his apartment block, Spencer doesn't really know what he is looking for.
Only
when Livia walks down the stairs does he know what it is. He wants to save her
from her life on the street, but deep down he thinks that perhaps she can save
him.
A love story set in a sex shop, 'Love Machine' is a candid,
confronting but also very funny first novel about the strange and familiar business
of desire.
Clinton Caward has completed a Master of Arts in
Writing by research. His work has appeared in The Australian, Southerly, Meanjin
and various short story anthologies. He has received an Australian Society of
Authors Mentorship. He lives in Sydney.
'Love
Machine' is available now (RRP $29.95).
