FROM THE INSIDE COVER:The life on Sweet Street is harsh, often vicious. Why do people work there? Their reasons for doing what they do are startling, touching, shocking. But the Street has a code, a system, a vitality, a hierarchy just like any other social group. Here the misfits can come and be part of a group -- a whole world to itself -- a grey society living off the needs and greeds of people they fundamentally despise.
Robert Benni, restaurateur: "If I don't go to church on Sunday, I feel rottenIn their own words they tell you what living in the grey society really means -- ferociously competitive, tender, rough, poignant -- a life for survivors only.. . . even though I might walk out of church and bust a guy in the head with a hammer. . . I have to go to church first."Jessica King, cocktail waitress: "Streetwalkers give us the most. They say 'Why don't you get on your ass like us?' and I go, 'Huh?' And they go 'Here, honey,' and give me money."
Jim Flaherty, police detective: "I sent him to the state penitentiary twice, and he's one of the dearest guys I ever met. He paints like an angel, but he'd rather steal."
Merle Farquhar, retired prostitute: "I got tired of being busted and ripped off at the same time. I got a couple of fancy cops demoted to flatfeet. It took two years of gossiping but I did it. I'm the worm that turned."
"Sweet Street" is a named assigned arbitrarily by the author to a single block of a major American city. To protect its residents from public embarrassment and harassment, official or otherwise, all names have been changed except those of historical places and personages.