Things You Get For Free UK edition

‘McGirr offers some of the sharpest observations on European foibles since Mark Twain swept through the continent … Readers will come for the humour, but they’ll stay for McGirr’s haunting memories of his path into the priesthood, his mother’s sacrifices and his father’s death.’

– Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)

‘It would be impossible not to enjoy the company of Michael McGirr: son, priest, raconteur and writer.’

– The Age

‘No travel writing I have read elsewhere has such depth of insight into depression, organised religion and the empires of Other People and What It All Meant.’

– Les Murray, Times Literary Supplement

‘A fresh and funny memoir ― thoughtful, searching, with reckless flashes of tenderness.’

– Helen Garner

‘Most people writing about their mothers go in for self-justification or malicious gossip: McGirr doesn’t – he goes in for tenderness and humour. This is a happy book about a happy journey made by two happy grown ups, who have known each other a long time. It could be “twee” but it isn’t – it’s refreshing. Probably because McGirr writes well and is not sentimental but loving (towards his mother, his world and himself). It’s a shame that the word “delightful” has been devalued – this is a delightful book; it is full of delights.’

– Sara Maitland

Michael McGirr, born in 1961, is an essayist, reviewer, prize-winning short-story writer and teacher. A former Jesuit priest, he has been the publisher of Eureka Street and editor of Australian Catholics; and is the author of Unhinged Saints, Tim Winton: the writer and his work, Bypass: the story of a road, and The Lost Art of Sleep. He lives in Melbourne with his wife, Jenny, and their three children.