Polygon has acquired World English Language rights, including audio, for Atypical Girl, a memoir by former music journalist Penny Kiley. It will be published in the autumn of 2025.

Polygon’s senior editor Alison Rae said: ‘When I read the opening sentences – I’m in a small, dark club in Liverpool, listening to punk rock. People are drinking cans of Jamaican lager and having intense conversations. I’m trying not to feel shy – I knew I’d love this book. Because that was me, 176 miles north, a misfit too. Penny’s writing is effortless: it makes you happy, it makes you remember, and it captures the extraordinary, lifelong relationship we all have with music. We’re proud to welcome Penny to Polygon’s list.’

Penny said: ‘As soon as I met Alison I knew she was the right editor for the book. She understands music and the way it still means so much to people of our generation. I’ve read and loved other music books from Polygon so I’m excited that my memoir will be joining them.’

Atypical Girl is a memoir about Liverpool, punk rock and trying to be normal. Set against the backdrop of the Liverpool music scene of the 1980s and beyond, this is a story about the search for identity and the role that music plays in all our lives.

The story begins in 1976, when punk rock has just hit Liverpool. The legendary Eric’s club is home to the city’s rebels, posers and misfits. It’s a place of attitude, adventure and new possibilities, and it changes lives. Some – like Pete Wylie, Julian Cope and Holly Johnson – become pop stars; Penny Kiley becomes a music journalist. The book traces the Liverpool music scene over the years, and Penny’s relationship with it, from the turbulent political times of the 1980s into the changing culture of the twenty-first century. Throughout these years, Penny never stops being a misfit, and the question remains: how do you navigate normal life when punk is dead, and you don’t know you’re autistic?

Atypical Girl is a vivid and evocative picture of a time and place, as well as an honest and moving personal story.

Penny Kiley was Liverpool correspondent for Melody Maker during the post-punk years of the late 1970s and 1980s. She also wrote for Smash Hits and was pop columnist for the Liverpool Echo. She was diagnosed as autistic at the age of sixty.