Author(s): Thomas Morris

Short Stories | Britain | Humour & Satire

A GRANTA BEST YOUNG BRITISH NOVELIST 2023

The new collection from a literary star - five achingly tender, innovative and dazzling stories of (dis)connection.

From a child attending his first football match, buoyed by secret magic, and a wincingly humane portrait of adolescence, to the perplexity of grief and loss through the eyes of a seahorse, Thomas Morris seeks to find grace, hope and benevolence in the churning tumult of self-discovery.

Philosophically acute. Wincingly humane. Strikingly original. This outstanding suite of stories is bursting with a bracing emotional depth. Open Up cracks the heart as it expands the short story form.

Praise for We Don't Know What We're Doing:

'Heart-hurtingly acute, laugh-out-loud funny, and one of the most satisfying collections I've read for years.'- ALI SMITH, Guardian 'Books of the Year'
'Masterly. . . marvellous grace and wit.' -PHILIP HENSHER
'That tonic gift, the sense of truth - the sense of transparency that permits us to see imaginary lives more clearly than we see our own'. The tonic comes in large doses in Thomas Morris's debut short-story collection.'-Irish Times
'Morris's fresh, direct writing style feels brand new.' -Metro
'Radiant' -Independent

Author Biography: Thomas Morris's debut story collection We Don't Know What We're Doing won The Wales Book of the Year Award, The Rhys Davies Trust Fiction Award, and a Somerset Maugham Prize. His stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published and anthologised in Zoetrope, Best European Fiction 2018, and The Penguin Book of the Contemporary British Short Story. He lives in Dublin, where he is Editor-at-Large at The Stinging Fly.