Then We Came to the End: A Novel

Overview

This wickedly funny, big-hearted novel about life in the office signals the arrival of a gloriously talented new writer.

The characters in THEN WE CAME TO THE END cope with a business downturn in the time-honored way: through gossip, secret romance, elaborate pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks. By day they compete for the best office furniture left behind and try to make sense of the mysterious pro-bono ad campaign that is their only remaining "work."

Editorial Reviews

In this wildly funny debut from former ad man Ferris, a group of copywriters and designers at a Chicago ad agency face layoffs at the end of the '90s boom. Indignation rises over the rightful owner of a particularly coveted chair ("We felt deceived"). Gonzo e-mailer Tom Mota quotes Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the midst of his tirades, desperately trying to retain a shred of integrity at a job that requires a ruthless attention to what will make people buy things. Jealousy toward the aloof and "inscrutable" middle manager Joe Pope spins out of control. Copywriter Chris Yop secretly returns to the office after he's laid off to prove his worth. Rumors that supervisor Lynn Mason has breast cancer inspire blood lust, remorse, compassion. Ferris has the downward-spiraling office down cold, and his use of the narrative "we" brilliantly conveys the collective fear, pettiness, idiocy and also humanity of high-level office drones as anxiety rises to a fever pitch. Only once does Ferris shift from the first person plural (for an extended fugue on Lynn's realization that she may be ill), and the perspective feels natural throughout. At once delightfully freakish and entirely credible, Ferris's cast makes a real impression. (Mar.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Joshua Ferris

I was born in 1974 in Danville, Illinios, a small town just over the Indiana border. I went back recently and the house where I grew up had taken something out of Alice in Wonderland and shrunk to half the size of what I remembered it being. In 1984 my mother, sister, brother and I moved with my step-father to Cudjoe Key, Florida, where I learned how to fish, boat, snorkel, and work. At ten I had my own landscaping company for Cudjoe residents happy to pay three bucks an hour to have their weeds pulled and lawns mowed. I had my first proper job at Godfather's Pizza in 1985, busing tables and washing dishes. I moved back to Illinois, to Downers Grove, a suburb of Chicago, where I attended high school, after which I went to the University of Iowa, where I received a BA in English and Philosophy. I got my first job in advertising in 1998, at a Chicago firm called Davis Harrison Dion, and also worked for Draft Worldwide, before leaving Chicago for Long Beach, California and the MFA program at the University of California, Irvine.

Customer Reviews

• I would give it 7 Stars if I could!

  Posted August 16, 2009 by K. Lerin, Bronx, NY

  What an enjoyable, laugh-out-loud, sophisticated novel. I couldn't put it down. It was my virginal book on my new e-reader and I'm hooked (on the reader and on Joshua Ferris). He has a short story in the New Yorker this month too. Read it.

Additional Info

Imprint

Hachette Book Group USA

Filesize

367.92 KB

Number of Pages

400

eBook ISBN

031600281X

Awards

• New York Times Notable Books of the Year