The Game You Played (42 page)

Is
Southern Sails Street
a real street?

No, it’s fictional. The suburb that the characters of
THE GAME YOU PLAYED
live in is never given a name in the book. But the fictional suburb is loosely based on Miller’s Point, Sydney. All of the historical facts are real--such as the terrace houses having been built by the government’s Maritime Services Board, the decades of the Bubonic Plague and having had one end of the massive Sydney Harbour Bridge built there. The Maritime terrace housing was taken over by government housing in 1985. In recent years, the residents (many of whom have families that had lived there for generations) did have to leave their homes (the land being sold to developers). This has been happening for a while now, and the details in the book about the timing (including one side of the street being flattened before the other) are not accurate and are used for dramatic purposes only.

If you would like to know more, here are some references:

1.
(Recent years. The residents’ point of view)

2.
(Recent years. The government/Sydney Council’s point of view)

3.
(Historical)