Nowra began walking the maze of criss-crossing, twisting and turning streets, roads, laneways, alleys, steps and paths that made up the inner city. Sydney was a disorderly place. It was not like Melbourne, with its mid-19th century, grid-pattern layout. In 1883, in his book Town Life in Australia, Richard Twopenny noted that “there is a certain picturesqueness and old-fashionedness about Sydney, which brings back pleasant memories of Old England, after the monotonous perfection of Melbourne and Adelaide”.
Louis Nowra’s inspired biography of Sydney starts with a surprise visit to the city. He grew up in a housing commission estate in Melbourne. In 1959