They spend their days - and too many of their nights - at work. Away from friends and family, they share a stretch of stained carpet with a group of strangers they call colleagues. There's Chris Yop, clinging to his ergonomic chair; Lynn Mason, the boss, whose breast cancer everyone pretends not to talk about; Carl Garbedian, secretly taking someone else's medication; Marcia Dwyer, whose hair is stuck in the eighties; and Benny, who's just - well, just Benny. Amidst the boredom, redundancies, water cooler moments, meetings, flirtations and pure rage, life is happening, to their great surprise, all around them. "Then We Came to the End" is about sitting all morning next to someone you cross the road to avoid at lunch. It's the story of your life and mine.
Then We Came to the End: A Novel
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Review
Outstanding, hugely satisfying, exceptionally well-executed . . . An incisive, urgent, funny and snappily written novel (Sunday Times Magazine)
As impressively confident as Donna Tartt's The Secret History and as technically dazzling as Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections . . . Exceptional, funny, radical (Telegraph)
Brilliant, funny, stomach-turningly accurate (Observer)
As impressively confident as Donna Tartt's The Secret History and as technically dazzling as Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections . . . Exceptional, funny, radical (Telegraph)
Brilliant, funny, stomach-turningly accurate (Observer)
About the Author
Joshua Ferris was born in Chicago in 1975. He attended Iowa University and then worked in an advertising agency for four years. He now lives in Brooklyn, NY.
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First Sentence
WE WERE FRACTIOUS AND overpaid. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
WE WERE FRACTIOUS AND overpaid. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
29 of 30 people found the following review helpful
By Juliet Platt
Format:Paperback
This is an intriguing book which provides a dry, original and darkly humourous commentary on the superficiality of modern corporate life and the dangers of the American Dream, as well as a reflection on individual creativity and resourcefulness. It is a very interesting read if you've got time and are feeling generous.
Like other reviewers I was so tempted to can this book after about 100 pages. I'd picked it up for it's quirkiness, but this started to pall for me about a third of the way in. Thank goodness, however, that I made a resolution this year - the National Year of Reading - to always finish any book I start, no matter how painful, no matter how long it takes...
It does take a while, but eventually this book really delivers. In the opening chapters Ferris makes our reading experience as irritatingly meaningless as the superficial lives he describes. As readers we learn something of how it feels to work day-in-day-out in an office where the true meaning of life is obscured by silliness, such as who's got whose chair, or how to write ad copy for products that people don't yet know they desperately need.
Then, about half way through, the style and narrative viewpoint suddenly shift to reveal the heart of the book, to tell part of the story that this book is really about.
The section entitled "The thing to do and the place to be" is a wonderful piece of writing, which surprises us later in the book as well. It describes a 43 year old woman's experience directly before she is due in surgery to have a mastectomy. It is a desperately dark and exceedingly moving piece of writing, which, with a few minor tweaks, would stand alone as a short story within itself - and is worth getting hold of the entire book just to read. Read more ›
Like other reviewers I was so tempted to can this book after about 100 pages. I'd picked it up for it's quirkiness, but this started to pall for me about a third of the way in. Thank goodness, however, that I made a resolution this year - the National Year of Reading - to always finish any book I start, no matter how painful, no matter how long it takes...
It does take a while, but eventually this book really delivers. In the opening chapters Ferris makes our reading experience as irritatingly meaningless as the superficial lives he describes. As readers we learn something of how it feels to work day-in-day-out in an office where the true meaning of life is obscured by silliness, such as who's got whose chair, or how to write ad copy for products that people don't yet know they desperately need.
Then, about half way through, the style and narrative viewpoint suddenly shift to reveal the heart of the book, to tell part of the story that this book is really about.
The section entitled "The thing to do and the place to be" is a wonderful piece of writing, which surprises us later in the book as well. It describes a 43 year old woman's experience directly before she is due in surgery to have a mastectomy. It is a desperately dark and exceedingly moving piece of writing, which, with a few minor tweaks, would stand alone as a short story within itself - and is worth getting hold of the entire book just to read. Read more ›
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
There is a danger that if you write a novel about the mundanity and boredom of office life the result will be boring and mundane. That appears to be the criticism of those who didn't enjoy this, and yet there can be beauty, drama and pathos in such a life lived which Ferris captures this well.
There are a number of great comic set ups all of which pay off and the final section which looks back with the benenfit of hindsight is both poignant and moving.
There are a number of great comic set ups all of which pay off and the final section which looks back with the benenfit of hindsight is both poignant and moving.
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
By a music fan
Format:Paperback
I was amazed to see so many poor reviews of this book. This was probably the most I have enjoyed a book in the last year. I can understand what some reviewers have said about the characters not being engaging at the start of the book. The style is very chatty, and at first you only hear small snippets about each character, and so you build up a picture of them quite slowly. But I was still enjoying the book as an amusing satire of office life.
But for me the book changed into a different gear about half way through with the moving and thought-provoking incident which other reviewers have mentioned concerning the hospital appointment. From that point on I really had to know what was going to happen, not just to that character, but to the others as well. At the end of the book there are elements to the plot which affect everyone in the the office and I thought it was an achievement of the book that I cared about what would happen to ALL the characters, not just the funny or pleasant ones but even those who at first had seemed quite unappealing. Don't think of this as "The Office" in book form. It goes beyond just being an office satire.
But for me the book changed into a different gear about half way through with the moving and thought-provoking incident which other reviewers have mentioned concerning the hospital appointment. From that point on I really had to know what was going to happen, not just to that character, but to the others as well. At the end of the book there are elements to the plot which affect everyone in the the office and I thought it was an achievement of the book that I cared about what would happen to ALL the characters, not just the funny or pleasant ones but even those who at first had seemed quite unappealing. Don't think of this as "The Office" in book form. It goes beyond just being an office satire.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By J. Wise
Format:Paperback
Joshua Ferris's funny-but-bitter debut was one of the books of the year in 2007. In truth, it's one of the books of any year of this vast, anonymous corporate age. Read it and you'll quickly see how high the new breed of young American literary geniuses is setting the bar. They're reinventing the novel, redefining our lives. Ferris is right up there with the best of them, a statement you won't dispute when you've finished his book, not if you work in a sizeable office, and especially if you've faced cutbacks or redundancy.
It's written in the first person plural, and no, I couldn't have told you what that was beforehand. I can now, though, and when I twigged that it was the way big companies tend to refer to themselves I had to go back and start again with a fresh perspective. (I've done you a favour there!)
TWCTTE is the story of a band of advertising agency staff suffering the effects of the downturn in the 90s. The characterisations are subtly drawn and shaped by dialogue most will find familiar. Ferris goes beyond sharply observant; he sees behind the averted eyes, listens in to sneaky back-stabbing chats, lays egos bare, hears the inner turmoil and fear behind management-speak. There is Everyman here, and what Everyman becomes in a corporate environment. But when we come to the end of the book we have revelation, a new way of looking at our working lives, indeed, even life.
A profound and clever work. Quite possibly a classic.
It's written in the first person plural, and no, I couldn't have told you what that was beforehand. I can now, though, and when I twigged that it was the way big companies tend to refer to themselves I had to go back and start again with a fresh perspective. (I've done you a favour there!)
TWCTTE is the story of a band of advertising agency staff suffering the effects of the downturn in the 90s. The characterisations are subtly drawn and shaped by dialogue most will find familiar. Ferris goes beyond sharply observant; he sees behind the averted eyes, listens in to sneaky back-stabbing chats, lays egos bare, hears the inner turmoil and fear behind management-speak. There is Everyman here, and what Everyman becomes in a corporate environment. But when we come to the end of the book we have revelation, a new way of looking at our working lives, indeed, even life.
A profound and clever work. Quite possibly a classic.
38 of 44 people found the following review helpful
By Cindy Stroud
Format:Paperback
This is a funny look at the employees of a Chicago ad agency, that is experiencing a downturn and forced layoffs after the boom of the 1990s comes to an end. Because of the bad economy there is not much time to work but lots of time to gossip and worry about who is next to get the Axe! The characters are what drive this book and they are fully fleshed people you probably will recognize from your own life. There is the story-man, Benny, the put-down artist Marcia, Tom the guy who has been laid off but keeps hanging around anyway. The corporate culture is on display here. I had come to love the characters so much I was sad to see it end... I had not felt like that since finishing "Misfits Country."
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must read for office workers
A great book for anyone working in an office. The characters are instantly recognisable and we find them in any office we work in. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Margot
5.0 out of 5 stars
Is it infallibly the case that a book that polarizes opinion is a...
Having picked up this book on the off-chance, read it and loved it, I wanted to see what other people thought. Well, it seems that a good half of them hated it. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Horselover
4.0 out of 5 stars
an enjoyable read - possibly not for everyone
There seem to be a lot of reviewers here who did not appreciate this book. It would not do for us all to like the same things, but I for one really enjoyed it. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Miss AL Holloway
1.0 out of 5 stars
Boring!
This book was so pretentious and utterly un compelling. It's not often that I don't finish a book , but this was one of them. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Lovekatz
4.0 out of 5 stars
When the dot.com boom went bust
This is set in an advertising agency in Chicago as the dot.com boom comes to an end. The agency is struggling to survive, people are being laid off regularly. "Who's next? Read more
Published 13 months ago by gerardpeter
3.0 out of 5 stars
And then I finally came to the end...
Unfortunately, I agree with most other reviews on this book. I was recommended it by a friend but found it increasingly difficult to keep going. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Lissa
1.0 out of 5 stars
A Cure For Insomnioffice
'Then We Came To The End' - thank god. And so did I (thank god). The way the so-called 'critics' rave on about this book is pathetic. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Ozric Tents
4.0 out of 5 stars
If you work in an office, you'll love it
Admittedly, it's been a while since I read the book so can't really comment in depth, but when I noticed that it only had 3 stars (I'm about to buy it for a friend), I felt I had... Read more
Published on 4 Dec 2011 by Sas
5.0 out of 5 stars
Then We Came to the End
A really superb book. What seems initially a rather mundane, if funny, tale of days spent working in a Chicago ad agency ultimately transcends its setting to become a poignant... Read more
Published on 29 Oct 2011 by Dave Gilmour's cat
4.0 out of 5 stars
Surprising
Starting this, I didn't see how he could possibly weave a whole novel around such a slight conceit. Sure, office work's boring, but you don't need to go on about it for 300 pages. Read more
Published on 14 Sep 2011 by Frootle
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