OPEN UP
From Wales to Croatia to the depths of the ocean, these five achingly tender stories of connection and disconnection are bursting with emotional vulnerability.
A child attends his first football match, buoyed by secret magic; a young seahorse grapples with grief and loss; a troubled young man gets his birthday teeth. Strikingly original and wincingly humane, Open Up seeks to find grace, hope and benevolence in the churning tumult of self-discovery.
Open Up is my second book of stories. It took me seven years to write and I am very proud of it.
‘Thomas Morris is a master of the contemporary short story, and the stories in this collection are his best yet.’
—Sally Rooney
‘The stories in Open Up are funny, sad, complex, unexpected, and worthy of multiple readings. They’re also bloody brilliant.’
—Jon McGregor
More information
Read: ‘Wales’, the book’s opening story
Read: Sally Rooney’s launch speech for Open Up
Read: a list of some 50 Books that opened doors for me in the years I was writing the stories
Read: ‘Notes on the songs I listened to when writing Open Up’
Read/listen: Interviews about Open Up.
Italian/US/French editions
A US edition is available from Unnamed Press.
An Italian-language edition, Apriti, translated by Martina Testa, is published by Edizioni Sur.
A French edition is forthcoming in 2027.
