We Don’t Know What We’re Doing
Set in Caerphilly, a sleepy 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, and tender - these entertaining stories detail the lives of people who know where they are, but don't know what they'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
‘Morris’s masterly first book shows a literary virtue that will never falter: interest in other people. A rich sympathy for the individual goes with a fascination for how people fit together in communities, expressed with marvellous grace and wit.’
— Phillip Hensher
More information
A playlist of the songs I listened to while I was writing the book.
Luke Bird at Faber designed the cover. Each photo represents a different story in the collection, and I interviewed Luke about the cover.
The following writers are the ones whose work I was reading around the time I was writing the book – and/or from whom I found permission to write in certain ways:
Donald Barthelme, Frederick Barthelme, Ali Smith, Grace Paley, George Saunders, Dylan Thomas, Philip MacCann, Kevin Barry, Colin Barrett, Anne Enright, Jean-Paul Sartre, Miranda July, David Berman, Lorrie Moore, Raymond Carver, Richard Yates, Ottessa Moshfegh, Wells Tower, Albert Camus, ZZ Packer, Hermann Hesse, Aleksandar Hemon, Joy Williams, Bernard Malamud, Jon McGregor, Ian McEwan, Flannery O’Connor, Frank O’Connor, Don DeLillo, JG Ballard, AM Homes