We Are Not Ourselves

(Paperback)

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD
NOMINATED FOR THE FOLIO PRIZE
NAMED A NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES

A stunning, heartbreaking debut We Are Not Ourselves is both the intimate story of a family and an epic of the American Century.
Eileen Leary wants more. Raised in a downtrodden area of new York by hard-drinking, Irish immigrant parents, she dreams of another life: a better job, a bigger house, more respectable friends, a happy family. When she meets Ed Leary, a brilliant young scientist, she thinks shes found the perfect partner to pursue and share her American Dream with. An indefatigable love enters Eileens life but so too does a pervasive darkness and a loss that will last a lifetime.

Reviews

Extraordinary Intensely moving We Are Not Ourselves took 10 years to write, and justifies every one of them. Helen Dunmore, Guardian

Matthew Thomass ambitious first novel presents the life of one woman from cradle to late middle-age, and the changing backdrop of New York. Terrific The Times

An honest, intimate family story with the power to rock you to your core One of the frankest novels ever written about love between a caregiver and a person with a degenerative disease Thomas spares nothing and still makes it clear how deeply in love these soul mates are [It] will reduce anyone who ever had a parent to helpless tears. New York Times

Unflinching and heartbreaking The pain leaps from the page but so too does the love epic in scale, subject and compassion If Matthew Thomas writes nothing else, We Are Not Ourselves will stand as a magnificent achievement. 5* review, Sunday Express

The greatest Alzheimers novel yet Visionary and challenging Marvellous. New Yorker

A powerfully moving book. Chad Harbach

Author Bio

Matthew Thomas is a young British writer, 27, who works as a flight simulator graphics designer. Terror Firma is his second novel.