Misfits and Me

I fell in love with my first misfit at the age of three. He was a disabled man in a wheelchair who sold newspapers every afternoon outside the Empire Hotel in Annandale. Whenever I glimpsed him in the distance I would break into a run, jump onto his lap, and smother him with kisses.

Misfits & Me represents a selection of Mandy Sayer's non-fiction writing from the past twenty years. Each essay has been chosen to reflect a different aspect of Mandy's attraction to Australia's misfits and outsiders, from child gangs and hoarders to pensioner drug dealers. Sayer also writes with her inimitable frankness about her unconventional family, her unusual marriage to playwright and author Louis Nowra, and her writing process.

Mandy Sayer's Misfits & Me is warm and generous, deadly serious and very funny. Sayer is a terrific storyteller and the stories that she is telling us here are vital, surprising and necessary. - Christos Tsiolkas

Sayer deftly draws parallels between her own experiences of trauma and those of her interview subjects... will appeal to fans of Sayer's previous work over the last two decades as well as readers of investigative journalism. - Sonia Nair, Books+Publishing

It's hard to think of an Australian better equipped to write about misfits than Mandy Sayer, a square peg in human form. - Geordie Williamson, The Australian