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
28 of 29 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.
This section marks the pivotal point in the book after which the office characters shift into our consciousness as more real, more sympathetic, and more understandable. In the end we have to know what happens to Lynn Mason, Benny Shassburger, Tom Mota, Chris Yop and Marcia Dwyer - and the closing chapters provide us with intrigue, shock-value and a pleasing denouement.
I've only given this 3 stars because I found it threateningly inaccessible, and many readers will be put off by its initial ramblings. But if you grit your teeth and stick with it you will be richly rewarded for your efforts.
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.
This section marks the pivotal point in the book after which the office characters shift into our consciousness as more real, more sympathetic, and more understandable. In the end we have to know what happens to Lynn Mason, Benny Shassburger, Tom Mota, Chris Yop and Marcia Dwyer - and the closing chapters provide us with intrigue, shock-value and a pleasing denouement.
I've only given this 3 stars because I found it threateningly inaccessible, and many readers will be put off by its initial ramblings. But if you grit your teeth and stick with it you will be richly rewarded for your efforts.
14 of 15 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.
16 of 18 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.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
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 2 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 7 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 11 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 17 months ago 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 18 months ago 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 20 months ago by Frootle
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book about office life
Writing a good book about life in an office,rarely venturing outside it,is no mean feat. Unlike some reviewers, I really enjoyed it from start to finish. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Almond
1.0 out of 5 stars
Tedious in the extreme
I have struggled with this book (80 pages in) so out of curiosity I logged on to read the reviews in case I was missing something. Read more
Published 21 months ago by BogHopper
1.0 out of 5 stars
Avoid
I picked this book up incidentally with a book club offer. It wasn't the most captivating book to start with and it was uphill struggle to actually get through it. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Ash
5.0 out of 5 stars
Didn't want it to end
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 more
Published 23 months ago by J. Wise
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