ix 267 pages. The pages are lightly tanned, else the book appears unread: clean, unmarked and solid. "A young video shop assistant exchanges the home comforts of one mother-figure for a fleeting sexual encounter with another; a brother and sister find themselves at the bottom of a coal mine with a Japanese tourist; a Welsh stag on a debauched weekend in Dublin confesses an unimaginable truth; and a twice-widowed pensioner tries to persuade the lovely Mrs Morgan to be his date at the town's summer festival. Set in Caerphilly, a diminished castle town in South Wales, Thomas Morris debut collection reveals its treasures in unexpected ways, offering vivid and moving glimpses of the lost, lonely and bemused. By turns poignant, witty, tender and bizarre these entertaining stories detail the lives of people who know where they are, but don't know what they're doing. This is the work of a young writer with a startlingly fresh voice, an uncanny ear for dialogue and a broad emotional range." (publisher)