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." Out March 01, 2007 from Little, Brown. Here's the advance word from critics and writers:
Then We Came to the End has been chosen for the Richard and Judy Book Club 2008. You can find all the details here
The paperback, published by Viking, is currently available for purchase.
Bored at the office? How about a few ways to squander a few days: www.thenwecametotheend.co.uk
Joshua Ferris will be participating in the London Word Festival in London on February 28th alongside Joe Dunthorne and Richard Milward. For more information and to buy tickets, check out www.londonwordfestival.com
Then We Came to the End was recently long listed for the Guardian First Book Award.
"A terrific first novel ... awfully funny ... the rhythms and substance of a working day are slowly revealed to have the rhythms and substance of life itself." - Nick Hornby, The Believer
"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. At once delightfully freakish and entirely credible, Ferris's cast makes a real impression." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"I read this novel remembering why I ever wanted to read fiction, why I want to write it...It is also one of the funniest novels I have ever read." - Geoffrey Wolff, author of The Age of Consent
"A savagely funny yet kind-hearted tale of office life, set amid the cubicles and faded hallways of a Chicago ad agency. Gossip, sly romance and free bagels keep the employees' despair at bay and the plot ticking along, but it's the sheer bizarreness of our modern world of work that most interests Joshua Ferris. You won't find a sharper portrait of the dislocated camaraderie that's born of sitting elbow to elbow with people you'd ordinarily cross the street to avoid." - The Hot List 2007, The Observer
"Then We Came to the End is the Catch-22 of the business world: it's a hilarious and heartbreaking and surreal portrait of the modern American corporation as a carnival - preschool? - of infantile misbehavior and breathtakingly futile and petty and despairing competiton. The real revelation here is how moving it all becomes: how much humanity and genuine emotional weight finally, against all odds, shines through." - Jim Shepard, author of Project X
"This debut novel about life in a Chicago advertising agency succeeds as both a wickedly incisive satire of office groupthink and a surpisingly moving meditation on mortality and the ties that band." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A wildly original, totally off-the-wall, all-around wonderful first novel. Then We Came to the End moves only briefly beyond the confines of the workplace but encompasses a whole world of feeling. Laugh? It almost made me wish I had a job." - Geoff Dyer, author of Out of Sheer Rage and But Beautiful
"A hilarious and knowing evisceration of the hopes, dreams, and grim realities of cubicle life, penned with a witty DeVriesian sharpness, Then We Came to the End is a brilliant debut." - Katharine Weber, author of Triangle and The Music Lesson
"Ferris repeatedly pulls us in by capturing multiple conversations at once and methodically expanding the space between words with humorous, thoughtful insight...With so many books on office life, it's nice to see someone add fresh spark and originality to the subject." - Library Journal
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