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No Dancing in the Lift: A memoir
‘… 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
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
221 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 28, 2025
1 person is currently reading
64 people want to read
About the author
Mandy Sayer
32 books26 followersMandy Sayer is an award-winning novelist and non-fiction writer. Her most recent book, Australian Gypsies: Their Secret History, has just been published by New South Press.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 20, 2026
review to follow
October 17, 2025
I feel a bit as if I've come half-way into a conversation with this book, because this memoir by Mandy Sayer is in fact her fourth (no fear of an unexamined life, here). But although it is discussing her life, it is more a love letter to her father, Gerry, addressed to him in the second person. ...
Her father had not been a constant presence in her life. Her parents, Gerry and Betty, separated when she was ten years old. It was an erratic, bohemian, drug-and-alcohol fuelled upbringing, and when she went to live with her mother, along with her siblings Lisa and Gene, her mother subsided further into alcoholism and toxic relationships. There were reconciliations, and further falling aparts. Her father came back into her life when, at the age of 20 she travelled with him to the United States to busk on the streets and parks of New York City, New Orleans and Colorado, he on drum, she tap-dancing. Now, in No Dancing in the Lift her own marriage has ended and she is a published author circulating in the literary scene in Sydney, and her father is dying of cancer. ...
As her father's cancer progresses, he becomes hostile and belligerent, although this subsides after further health conditions emerge. Her siblings, having survived the same childhood that she did, are troubled people as well: either distant in the case of her sister, or manipulative in the case of her brother. Both parents had embarked on complicated relationships after the marriage breakup, and as Gerry becomes sicker, people and situations emerge from his past. But fellow musicians and writers emerge as well, and the reefers and drinks flow in what must have seemed a racketty lifestyle in the midst of the inflexibility and judgement of hospitals and institutions....
She has not changed names in this book, and so you meet authors Louis Nowra and Linda Jaivan, musician Jeff Duff, and actors Geoffrey Rush and Cate Blanchett move in and out of the pages. It is an intensely local book, with the landscapes of Sydney and Darlinghurst described evocatively.
From the start of the book, you know as a reader how the book is going to end. What did surprise me was that these events took place twenty five years ago, as the rawness and the hollowness seemed so recent. Although I shouldn't really be surprised because, as the child, you are always the child. Although, as she says, her father has taught her how to grow old- and in his case, unrepentantly and without necessarily growing up.
You can read my complete review at: https://residentjudge.com/2025/10/17/...
Her father had not been a constant presence in her life. Her parents, Gerry and Betty, separated when she was ten years old. It was an erratic, bohemian, drug-and-alcohol fuelled upbringing, and when she went to live with her mother, along with her siblings Lisa and Gene, her mother subsided further into alcoholism and toxic relationships. There were reconciliations, and further falling aparts. Her father came back into her life when, at the age of 20 she travelled with him to the United States to busk on the streets and parks of New York City, New Orleans and Colorado, he on drum, she tap-dancing. Now, in No Dancing in the Lift her own marriage has ended and she is a published author circulating in the literary scene in Sydney, and her father is dying of cancer. ...
As her father's cancer progresses, he becomes hostile and belligerent, although this subsides after further health conditions emerge. Her siblings, having survived the same childhood that she did, are troubled people as well: either distant in the case of her sister, or manipulative in the case of her brother. Both parents had embarked on complicated relationships after the marriage breakup, and as Gerry becomes sicker, people and situations emerge from his past. But fellow musicians and writers emerge as well, and the reefers and drinks flow in what must have seemed a racketty lifestyle in the midst of the inflexibility and judgement of hospitals and institutions....
She has not changed names in this book, and so you meet authors Louis Nowra and Linda Jaivan, musician Jeff Duff, and actors Geoffrey Rush and Cate Blanchett move in and out of the pages. It is an intensely local book, with the landscapes of Sydney and Darlinghurst described evocatively.
From the start of the book, you know as a reader how the book is going to end. What did surprise me was that these events took place twenty five years ago, as the rawness and the hollowness seemed so recent. Although I shouldn't really be surprised because, as the child, you are always the child. Although, as she says, her father has taught her how to grow old- and in his case, unrepentantly and without necessarily growing up.
You can read my complete review at: https://residentjudge.com/2025/10/17/...
October 16, 2025
An excoriating, lyrical, playful, evocative and brutally honest memoir by Mandy Sayer, NO DANCING IN THE LIFT (Transit Lounge 2025) is also funny, heartwarming, poignant and devastatingly nostalgic.
Sayer asks of her father: ‘Why am I still haunting you, after all these years? Why am I resurrecting you, over and over? Perhaps because I am approaching the age you were when we began performing on the streets, when you left your home, your gigs, your friends, to run off to New York on an adventure with me.’
Based around events of two decades ago, Sayer recalls the diagnosis of her father, Gerry, with terminal cancer, and their last months together. She dissects their past – which did include them busking on the streets of New York when she was a pre-teen – and examines every decision and action she takes while he is dying, and in the time afterwards.
Coincidentally, it is around the same time that she meets a new partner, Louis, who will become the love of her life (after a tumultuous, vibrant and bracing personal history) and eventually become her husband.
This dichotomy of the ailing of her beloved father intertwining with a burgeoning romance shines a spotlight on life, death, joy, regrets, loyalties, ambition, family and the often-fractured history of relationships.
Sayer is ‘in your face’ – direct, vivid, to the point. She doesn’t hold back on her recollection of her feelings and her behaviour (or those of others). This is a brutally honest account. It is also at times hilarious, eye-opening, uplifting and brooding. It is proud and vulnerable. Packed with cringeworthy anecdotes but also filled with grace.
Not a read for the fainthearted, in NO DANCING IN THE LIFT, Sayer explores and judges her own emotions and decisions, and those of others, in a forthright manner, with no holding back. She manages to combine frank assessments of real events with some beautiful literary writing that explores, in a nuanced way, grief, fear, love, music, memories, relationship dynamics, passion, betrayal and forgiveness.
Sayer asks of her father: ‘Why am I still haunting you, after all these years? Why am I resurrecting you, over and over? Perhaps because I am approaching the age you were when we began performing on the streets, when you left your home, your gigs, your friends, to run off to New York on an adventure with me.’
Based around events of two decades ago, Sayer recalls the diagnosis of her father, Gerry, with terminal cancer, and their last months together. She dissects their past – which did include them busking on the streets of New York when she was a pre-teen – and examines every decision and action she takes while he is dying, and in the time afterwards.
Coincidentally, it is around the same time that she meets a new partner, Louis, who will become the love of her life (after a tumultuous, vibrant and bracing personal history) and eventually become her husband.
This dichotomy of the ailing of her beloved father intertwining with a burgeoning romance shines a spotlight on life, death, joy, regrets, loyalties, ambition, family and the often-fractured history of relationships.
Sayer is ‘in your face’ – direct, vivid, to the point. She doesn’t hold back on her recollection of her feelings and her behaviour (or those of others). This is a brutally honest account. It is also at times hilarious, eye-opening, uplifting and brooding. It is proud and vulnerable. Packed with cringeworthy anecdotes but also filled with grace.
Not a read for the fainthearted, in NO DANCING IN THE LIFT, Sayer explores and judges her own emotions and decisions, and those of others, in a forthright manner, with no holding back. She manages to combine frank assessments of real events with some beautiful literary writing that explores, in a nuanced way, grief, fear, love, music, memories, relationship dynamics, passion, betrayal and forgiveness.
September 8, 2025
Reviewed by Nan van Dissel for Transit Lounge and Bluewolf Reviews
Award winning novelist and narrative non-fiction author Mandy Sayer’s third family memoir ‘No Dancing in the Lift’ won’t disappoint readers, who enjoyed her two previous memoirs. She again uses her characteristic straightforward way to reminisce about her life with her irresponsible jazz drummer father, while being his primary carer in the last months of his life. He died in 2000.
When Mandy learns that her father, Gerry has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, despite having an extremely busy life, studying and freelance writing, she decides to become his carer. Using a variety of sources, which included personal journals, archived medical records and newspaper clippings, she has created a reflective but loving memoir of not only his last months but also their life together as buskers and performers on the sidewalks of New Orleans and New York in the 1980s. Her no nonsense approach does not camouflage her deep love for her often difficult parent, but it also demonstrates their unique relationship.
Even the most intimate and moving of memories have been written with honesty; sometimes they are funny but never sentimental, and always well written. I highly recommend this touching memoir to readers, who have been carers and who have also reflected on the lives of those for whom they have cared.
Award winning novelist and narrative non-fiction author Mandy Sayer’s third family memoir ‘No Dancing in the Lift’ won’t disappoint readers, who enjoyed her two previous memoirs. She again uses her characteristic straightforward way to reminisce about her life with her irresponsible jazz drummer father, while being his primary carer in the last months of his life. He died in 2000.
When Mandy learns that her father, Gerry has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, despite having an extremely busy life, studying and freelance writing, she decides to become his carer. Using a variety of sources, which included personal journals, archived medical records and newspaper clippings, she has created a reflective but loving memoir of not only his last months but also their life together as buskers and performers on the sidewalks of New Orleans and New York in the 1980s. Her no nonsense approach does not camouflage her deep love for her often difficult parent, but it also demonstrates their unique relationship.
Even the most intimate and moving of memories have been written with honesty; sometimes they are funny but never sentimental, and always well written. I highly recommend this touching memoir to readers, who have been carers and who have also reflected on the lives of those for whom they have cared.
February 7, 2026
(Disclosure - I know Mandy and play a small, credited role in the story) Mandy Sayer writes with raw honesty - a cliche in many reviews, but absolutely apt here - about the time from when her beloved father became ill with cancer and passed away, during which she met her life partner, Louis Nowra. All of Mandy's memoirs are worth reading, but you can start here and work backwards too. Vivid, moving, and real.
September 25, 2025
Mandy Sayer’s memoir focused on her dying father is fascinating - I’m stunned at how much drug taking there was in their lives.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews