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Author Mandy Sayer.<\/p>\nMandy Sayer\u2019s father Gerry lived life to the beat of his own drum kit.<\/p>\n
A restless spirit who valued the oddball calm derived from choosing creative freedom over a life of suburban satisfaction, the talented jazz drummer was an unconventional dad, a precarious parent \u2013 often absent, somewhat self-absorbed and repeatedly prone to a messy personal life.<\/p>\n
Yet despite his many shortcomings, Sayer\u2019s bond with her father \u2013 her friend \u2013 remained wondrously close and loving, \u2018til the end.<\/p>\n
Author Mandy Sayer.<\/p>\n
In her third memoir, No Dancing in the Lift, Sayer recounts her dad\u2019s later life at the end of the millennium as he dies from cancer.<\/p>\n
And while this is a love letter to her father, as her dad slips away what unfurls is the beginnings of new love, a lasting love \u2013 and one encouraged by her dad \u2013 between Sayer and her good friend (now-husband), the author and playwright Louis Nowra.<\/p>\n
Sayer employs personal journals, medical records and newspaper clippings in her pragmatic approach to piecing together a\u00a0 memoir that brims with joy and devotion.<\/p>\n
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The story unfolds over the final year of her 78-year-old dad\u2019s life, mostly in his flat, her neglected Sydney Kings Cross apartment and a nearby hospice.<\/p>\n
Memories of her Irish dad\u2019s outlandish tales are intertwined with the present \u2013 a cocktail of jazz jam sessions and all-night parties washed down with copious amounts of alcohol and a constant supply of freshly rolled joints.<\/p>\n
As Sayer reminds us, one of her dad\u2019s favourite sayings was: \u201cI\u2019m here for a good time, not for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why the book\u2019s title? It\u2019s what Sayer and Gerry would say, then do, when entering a lift together. A reflection on their rule-defying temperament, sprinkled with joy and humour:<\/p>\n
\u201cFor years after your death, I searched for the film that had inspired our habit of defying rules and tap dancing in lifts \u2026 the only movie that comes close to your description is Thoroughly Modern Milly (1968), starring Julie Andrews and Mary Tyler Moore, who live in a 13-floor hotel \u2026 The lift is always malfunctioning, and the only way anyone can make it work is to tap vigorously until it begins to move, and to keep on dancing until the correct floor is reached.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A tap-dancing teenage Mandy Sayer busking with her drummer dad Gerry on the streets of Sydney\u2019s Chinatown in 1980.\u00a0![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/sayer1.jpg\")
Mandy and Gerry busking on Mardi Gras Day, Bourbon St, Sydney, 1984.![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/sayer55.jpg\")
Mandy Sayer performing at Circular Quay in 1983.<\/p>\n
Of course, after Gerry\u2019s diagnosis, neither feel like dancing in the lift. Cancer treatment alters Gerry\u2019s normally easy-going temperament. Sayer must navigate his \u201carsehole behaviour\u201d while managing to remain his steadfast support. It becomes clear that Sayer\u2019s care for her father is uncompromising \u2013 even giving him her satin dressing gown because it would drape softly over his paper-thin skin.<\/p>\n
Sayer doesn\u2019t whitewash the dysfunctionality of her family \u2013 her siblings, her mother Betty\u2019s descent into alcoholism \u2013 the poverty, addiction, mental illness, infidelity and drug use. Still, Sayer\u2019s love for her father shines through. In tandem with this, new love blossoms as Sayer\u2019s friendship with Nowra evolves:<\/p>\n
\u201cThis man now had a distinct advantage over me: If he read Dreamtime Alice, he knew that I\u2019d had my first orgasm when I was nine years old, while listening to you and Betty make love; how I was conceived after you\u2019d swallowed a block of hash; how I\u2019d once had an affair with a dwarf \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
An award-winning novelist and non-fiction author, Sayer\u2019s prose is easy on the ears, its jazz-like rhythm changing with the mood \u2013 the joy and deep emotions alternating as the story unfolds.<\/p>\n
No Dancing in the Lift will resonate with anyone experiencing the grief of caring solely for a dying loved one. And it will touch a chord with daughters reconnecting to memories shared with their own dads.<\/p>\n
It all makes for a rollicking read and, as a result, I\u2019ll be hunting down copies of Sayer\u2019s award-winning Dreamtime Alice (1999), which recounts a twentysomething Sayer tap-dancing alongside her jazz drummer dad when busking in New York and Orleans; and Velocity (2005), which delves into Sayer\u2019s youth.<\/p>\n
No Dancing in the Lift by Mandy Sayer, is published by Transit Lounge, $32.99.<\/p>\n