It all started with just a taste ...

'I made money I'd never imagined and I wore velvet dress and shone in lamplight. I walked tall in crowds, knowing myself to be desired. I told people I was a prostitute, and smiled as I said it, and dared them to turn their gaze. The smile that I give when I talk about it now is, I can feel, nostalgic, provocative. A brightness comes into my eyes. And, I'm told a hard look too.'

It all started with just a taste...

'And so I thought I should try it. Just once, to know. To join them behind the closed door of someone's bedroom, to be able to say, you really are insane, now I know what you're doing. To leap over that river. To test myself.'

To the horror ...

of her close, middle class Melbourne family, Kate Holden's family saw their beloved daughter & sister spiral from a university graduate to a heroin addicted St Kilda street worker 

A stunningly talented writer ...

with an honours degree from the University of Melbourne, Holden 'diarised' her 'new life' as a sex worker named 'Lucy', starting from the streets of St Kilda and winding up in high class brothels, both of which to support her heroin habbit (which was recorded at $100 a day).

Fueled with honesty and confronting at times ... 

Holden's memoir cleverly commentates as both the writer and the prostitute. It explores the unseen of the street life in Melbourne, the desperation, the dirtiness, the, at some times, mate-ship of the workers, the hope and most of all, the power that heroin can hold over a human being.

I too, enjoyed the beauty, tragedy and truth of Kates journey.

MC