King of the Quill

Any self-respecting journalist dreams of becoming a famous novelist. However, they rarely turn out to be the Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway or Martha Gelhorn of their time. Freed from the restrictions of a newspaper many journalists create boring door stoppers, evoking James Joyce’s “Ulysses” – not necessarily because of the power of their language but rather from their heaviness and length of their tome. Not so the Sydney Morning Herald’s columnist Mark Dapin in his first book of fiction “King Of The Cross”: He wrote 308 racy pages of quirky humour, innuendo and wry comments on life, love and licentiousness. Read more