29 March 2008

Book: Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris


Then We Came To The End is a witty novel about the post dot-com bubble-bursting. Set in a Chicago ad agency in 2001, the book follows a group of people who are facing rolling layoffs. But even as the company tries to find more work -and ends up doing some pro-bono work on breast cancer (where they try to find the humor in it) - the employees take on a siege mentality. Told in the sometimes confusing first-person plural, the novel gives a fishbowl look into the daily operations of an office on the verge of falling apart. .

For anyone who’s worked in a office full of cubicles, where gossip, pranks and the joy of finding food in the breakroom, is sometimes more important than the actual work, will love this from first-time novelist Joshua Ferris. This is no The Office or even Office Space, but it does share the same universe. For some, the workplace becomes your second home, filled with “family” members who are just as dysfunctional and lunatic as your own.

The book is filled with many amusing passages, including the office coordinator who tracks serial numbers of office furniture and how the employees raid the detritus of former employee’s things, sifting through their boxes in hope of finding something useful.

Sharp, and at times wildy funny, the novel zooms along taking people on a glorious ride.

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