Only ordinary character in the book is Joseph

Time reviews Seven Poor Men of Sydney, very briefly.

The reviewer writes:

Only ordinary character in the book is Joseph, whose very ordinariness lights up the grotesque genius of his companions

The café so famous that it even appeared in Christina Stead's novel Seven Poor Men of Sydney

A 2011 article in SX magazine identifies one of the locations from Seven Poor Men of Sydney. (The arcade that housed the café was demolished in the mid-seventies, but here's a picture.)

The journalist writes:

In the 1930s, the Latin Cafe, run by Madam Helen Pura, was a very cosmopolitan venue, serving excellent European cuisine ... Celebrities and some high-powered elites were also fond of the venue, with the café so famous that it even appeared in Christina Stead's novel Seven Poor Men of Sydney, lightly disguised as the 'Roman Cafe'.

She whips the reader through the landscape

The Pykk blog glances at the first lines of Seven Poor Men of Sydney.

She whips the reader through the landscape with the same certainty that Ann Radcliff shows in The Mysteries of Udolpho - that consuming, roaming eye, searching for contrasts.