Book description
Only depression-shrouded Liverpool could spawn a big, tough, loving
character like Daisy Gallagher. Passionate in her loves and hatreds,
she is the nan of her poverty-stricken family and devoted friend of
Nellie O'Brien, who is dying from lack of medical attention. She is
always desperate for money. One dark night, she is cornered by three
drunken sailors who find her buxom figure, wrapped in a black shawl,
comfortably attractive. From fear, she yields herself to them and,
laughing, they pay her, and she realise how she can earn a living.
Fighting competition, weeping at her own suffering, laughing with her
clients, she becomes the toast of the waterfront and earns enough
money to buy medical attention for her friend. She manages to hide
from occupation from her family, but when her stoker husband returns
from sea she realises, terror-stricken, that the moment of truth has arrived.
