A young video shop assistant exchanges the home comforts of one mother-figure for a fleeting 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 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.
This is the work of a young writer with a startlingly fresh voice, an uncanny ear for dialogue and a broad emotional range. We Don't Know What We're Doing is a major launch for the Faber fiction list in 2015.
The first book of short stories by Thomas Morris, a young writer whose descriptions of the mundane magic of everyday life make one blissed out beyond envy. -- Julie Burchill ― Spectator Books of the Year
A beautiful, emotionally searching collection of stories about youth, responsibility and growing up. ― Telegraph
These ten stories are grounded and utterly glorious ... they are distinct but all of a piece, delights to savour.
― Literary Review
[T]here's something radiant about the frankness of his writing. ― Independent
[Morris'] fresh, direct writing style feels brand new, slamming the reader up against the chaos of his characters' inner lives in a way that makes you exhilarated and bruised. ― Metro
Be warned, these [stories] will keep you up reading all night. ― the-pool.com
A diverting collection. ― GQ
There's nothing to make you feel old like reading a set of staggeringly well-crafted short stories written by a 29-year-old ... A talent to watch. ― ShortList
Astonishingly good. ― Emerald Street
Touching, sad and lively, this is a great debut from a formidable talent. ― Winq
The power of great literature lies in its ability to reflect society. Writing about John McGahern, the American author John Updike called it '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
By turns poignant, witty, and tender. ― South Wales Evening Post
Thomas Morris' Caerphilly is a town of first loves, last loves and all degrees of mistakes. Each resident is trying to figure it all out and, in some way, they seem to be doing that together. ― Buzz
Morris's masterly first book shows a literary virtue that will never falter: interest in other people. A rich sympathy for the individuals goes with a fascination for how people fit together in communities, expressed with marvellous grace and wit. -- Philip Hensher
We Don't Know What We're Doing is mordantly funny and achingly true. The characters are with me many months after reading. -- Marcel Theroux ― Guardian
About the Author
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, and The Penguin Book of the Contemporary British Short Story. Born and raised in Caerphilly, South Wales, he now lives in Dublin, where he is Editor-at-Large at The Stinging Fly.
