- Hardcover: 400 pages
- Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (Mar 1 2007)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0316016381
- ISBN-13: 978-0316016384
- Product Dimensions: 15.9 x 3.2 x 24.1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 635 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #216,591 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. 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 © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"What looks at first glance like a sweet-tempered satire of workplace culture is revealed upon closer inspection to be a very serious novel about, well, America. It may even be, in its own modest way, a great American novel." (Los Angeles Times )
"A masterwork of pitch and tone. . . . Ferris brilliantly captures the fishbowl quality of contemporary office life." (The New Yorker )
"Not too many authors have written the Great American Office Novel. Joseph Heller did it in Something Happened (the one book of his to rival Catch-22). And Nicholson Baker pulled it off in zanily fastidious fashion in The Mezzanine. To their ranks should be added Joshua Ferris, whose THEN WE CAME TO THE END feels like a readymade classic of the genre. . . . A truly affecting novel about work, trust, love, and loneliness." (Seattle Times Michael Upchurch ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
"A masterwork of pitch and tone. . . . Ferris brilliantly captures the fishbowl quality of contemporary office life." (The New Yorker )
"Not too many authors have written the Great American Office Novel. Joseph Heller did it in Something Happened (the one book of his to rival Catch-22). And Nicholson Baker pulled it off in zanily fastidious fashion in The Mezzanine. To their ranks should be added Joshua Ferris, whose THEN WE CAME TO THE END feels like a readymade classic of the genre. . . . A truly affecting novel about work, trust, love, and loneliness." (Seattle Times Michael Upchurch ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Crazy layoff story !,
By
This review is from: Then We Came to the End: A Novel (Paperback)
I'm losing my job since a large US company bought us for our products, which they will make in Malta and India -good luck to them.This story is about the personalities and altered environment of an office that is closing as the people are layed off. I loved the book, but my friend did not so it depends how you take it. I thought it was exaggerated of course to add humour (tongue in cheek) but reveals all the different characters in your work space that come to light when something like this happens. Like THE MONSTERS ARE DUE ON MAPLE STREET old Twilight Zone episode (my favourite) we all change under adversity. Pretty cheap if you buy it used and worth a read -then pass it on.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing,
By
This review is from: Then We Came to the End: A Novel (Paperback)
This book looks like it would be a fun read, while the book has funny moments, it is anything but a fun read. The author uses an unconventional writing style that confuses the reader. The book has no real plot aside from a series of vignettes, and wild expectations. This book is an example of why I hate buying books, even though you didn't enjoy it, the author and publisher still got paid.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
"Then we came to the end" - but it took too long,
By
This review is from: Then We Came to the End: A Novel (Hardcover)
I really wanted to love this book. I had read several reviews that promoted it, and I was very confident I would love it. Unfortunately, my expectations were far too high. Had this book been half as long, which I argue it could be, I would probably have enjoyed it far more. But I ended up continuing to pick it up and work away at it just to finish it and start another one. I know people like it, so I feel a little bad, but it was just too long.
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