Ten Steps to Nanette
by Hannah Gadsby

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Multi-award-winning Hannah Gadsby broke comedy with their show Nanette when they declared that they were quitting stand-up. Now they take us through the defining moments in their life that led to the creation of Nanette and their powerful decision to tell the truth—no matter the cost.

Hannah Gadsby grew up as the youngest of five children in Tasmania, where homosexuality was illegal until 1997. After moving to mainland Australia and receiving a degree in art history, Gadsby found themselves adrift, working itinerant jobs and enduring years of isolation punctuated by homophobic and sexual violence. At age twenty-seven, a friend encouraged them to enter a stand-up competition. They won, and so began their career in comedy.

Gadsby became well known for their self-deprecating humor, but in 2015, as Australia debated the legality of same-sex marriage, they started to question this mode of storytelling, beginning work on a show that would transform their career.

Harrowing and hilarious, Ten Steps to Nanette traces Gadsby’s growth as a queer person, their ever-evolving relationship with comedy, and their struggle with late-in-life diagnoses of autism and ADHD, finally arriving at the backbone of Nanette: the renouncement of self-deprecation, the rejection of misogyny, and the moral significance of truth-telling.

Story Locale:Tasmania, Australia, Edinburgh