Fiona Kelly McGregor - The Trap

Name: Fiona Kelly McGregor - The Trap
Start: 2026-06-24T18:00:00+10:00
End: 2026-06-24T18:00:00+10:00
Location: Upstairs at Gleebooks

About

6pm for 6.30pm Wednesday 24 June

Fiona Kelly McGregor in conversation with Guy Davidson

Sydney, October 1942. A wartime city dimmed by brownouts, flush with American cash, rotten with corruption.

For nightclub manager Ray Sayles, a fateful encounter in the Domain turns him into a police target. He's plunged into a system where the rich are untouchable but the marginalised - like notorious queer sly-grogger Iris Webber - are relentlessly targeted, and bent coppers hunt ordinary men whose only crime is desire.

Based on a shocking real-life scandal, The Trap is a blistering, standalone companion to the best-selling Iris. By turns tender and excoriating, it exhumes the hidden history of a city in which the law is a weapon wielded against those deemed deviant - and the most unforgivable vice is the truth.

Fiona Kelly McGregor has published a range of books across fiction and non-fiction, most recently the novel Iris, nominated for numerous prizes including the Miles Franklin Award, NSW Premier's Award, Stella Prize and ALS Gold Medal. McGregor's previous novel Indelible Ink won Age Book of the Year and was published in French translation by Actes Sud. Other books include essay collection Buried Not Dead, shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award, genre-busting photoessay A Novel Idea, and the underground classic chemical palace. McGregor writes art criticism and essays for a variety of publications including Artlink, Artist Profile, Sydney Review of Books and more, and when in Sydney, lives and works on Gadigal land.

Guy Davidson teaches English literature at the University of Wollongong, and researches the connections between literature and queer sexuality. He is the author or editor of five books, including, most recently, A Cambridge History of Gay American Autobiography, co-edited with David Bergman.