No Dancing in the Lift: A memoir

(Paperback)

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'... the sky detonated into chandeliers of light, and the Harbour Bridge was illuminated with Eternity, but the dawning of the new millennium was for me an anticlimax. Nothing had really changed; you were still dying, and no amount of pretty, sequined light floating from the heavens was going to reverse your fate.'

When Mandy Sayer learns of her father Gerry's diagnosis of terminal cancer, she faces a reckoning with past and future as she learns to navigate a precarious present. This is the joyous and nuanced account of her father's later life, his illness and the beautiful moments, music and memories of earlier times they share, yet it is also a fearless exploration of inescapable grief.

And an unfurling story of new love. Most of us will face the death of a cherished parent, and we all know the euphoria of falling in love. But few of us will experience both at the same time. Mandy's clear-eyed memoir is an unforgettable love letter from a daughter to her father and a wife to her husband.

No Dancing in the Lift is rich in intimate anecdotes begging to be shared. Evocative, funny, uplifting and heartbreaking, Mandy Sayer writes with a vivacious and lyrical grace.

'Mandy Sayer's storytelling is unforgettable music.' Maxine Hong Kingston, author of Woman Warrior

Author Bio

Mandy Sayer is an award-winning novelist and narrative non-fiction writer. Her honours include the Vogel Award (Mood Indigo), the National Biography Award, and the Australian Audio Book of the Year (Dreamtime Alice: A Memoir); the South Australian Premier's Award for Non-Fiction, and The Age Book of the Year for Non-fiction (Velocity: A Memoir); and the Davitt Award for Young Adult Fiction (The Night has a Thousand Eyes). In 2021, she was the recipient of the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship, which supported her research and writing of Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters: Australia's First Female Filmmaking Team (2022). Her work has been published in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Brazil, Japan, and China. She lives in Sydney with her husband, playwright and author, Louis Nowra.

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