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| Then We Came to the End: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Joshua Ferris
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Category: Book
List Price: $13.99
Buy Used: $3.09
You Save: $10.90 (78%)
New (57) Used (47) Collectible (1) from $3.09
Avg. Customer Rating:  207 reviews
Sales Rank: 3362
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 031601639X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780316016391
ASIN: 031601639X
Publication Date: February 26, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Standard used condition ie... could have dj tear, bump, or corner crease.This is a new book that received the above wear during its delivery. Has remainder mark.
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Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month Spotlight Title, April 2007: It's 2001. The dot-com bubble has burst and rolling layoffs have hit an unnamed Chicago advertising firm sending employees into an escalating siege mentality as their numbers dwindle. As a parade of employees depart, bankers boxes filled with their personal effects, those left behind raid their fallen comrades' offices, sifting through the detritus for the errant desk lamp or Aeron chair. Written with confidence in the tricky-to-pull-off first-person plural, the collective fishbowl perspective of the "we" voice nails the dynamics of cubicle culture--the deadlines, the gossip, the elaborate pranks to break the boredom, the joy of discovering free food in the breakroom. Arch, achingly funny, and surprisingly heartfelt, it's a view of how your work becomes a symbiotic part of your life. A dysfunctional family of misfits forced together and fondly remembered as it falls apart. Praised as "the Catch-22 of the business world" and "The Office meets Kafka," I'm happy to report that Joshua Ferris's brilliant debut lives up to every ounce of pre-publication hype and instantly became one of my favorite books of the year. --Brad Thomas Parsons
Product Description
No one knows us quite the same way as the men and women who sit beside us in department meetings and crowd the office refrigerator with their labeled yogurts. Every office is a family of sorts, and the ad agency Joshua Ferris brilliantly depicts in his debut novel is family at its strangest and best, coping with a business downturn in the time-honored way: through gossip, pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks.
With a demon's eye for the details that make life worth noticing, Joshua Ferris tells a true and funny story about survival in life's strangest environment--the one we pretend is normal five days a week.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 202 more reviews...
 What is "Then We Came To The End" trying to say? April 21, 2007
189 out of 210 found this review helpful
Despite widespread critical acclaim, this book has gotten mixed reviews from customers.
I understand it, and people who hated it aren't wrong. I'd like to address these criticisms later, so please stick with me.
The positive reviews I've read about "Then We Came To The End" are mostly spot-on -- but without giving it away, they don't consistently convey WHY this amusing, touching and ultimately tender book soars - at least for me.
It's the ending.
The last 20 pages of Joshua Ferris's book twisted and turned me in every direction. But it's THE VERY LAST LINE -- (DON'T CHEAT) -- that catapulted me into the universe with the most glorious twist of all.
Many writers searching for something to leave behind that feels ironic or profound -- I'm sorry -- in my view, they just don't know how to end their books. I say this as a consumer who's a voracious reader. Their last pages feel quietly pretentious -- or a little too contemplative or optimistic. Even great literature - especially prize-winning literature - can be so tortuous in construction or over-reaching in their efforts to convey some grand message -- that they feel like work, with sentences so mind-numbing that you need a dictionary and a level of concentration akin to taking a bar exam.
"Then We Came To The End" may not be considered great literature, but it's euphoric. It's wonderful. It underscores that nebulous "thing" that makes the office dull and robotic -- but also vital and vibrant, essential to our lives. The book makes me question, admire and dismiss -- all at once -- why I put up with so much " s***," why I find great satisfaction in my work on one day and why I hate everything the next. The masochistic, sadistic and triumphal feelings I have about work -- and about the "back stories" of my colleagues around me -- there's something weirdly magnetic about all of it -- even as I complain, complain, complain.
In my view, the simplicity (or difficulty) associated with "Then We Came To The End" really depends on whether the material hits you in a way that's familiar and funny, not dull or indulgent. It can do both. And as others have stated, the author's use of the first person plural "we" -- in every chapter but one -- can't be overstated. It's miraculous when it works -- because it's so difficult to pull off without fumbling or confusing the reader. When it does work (as it did for me) - when it's infused with content so beguiling and familiar -- you're no longer aware of the author's writing style, which should be the dream achievement of all great writers. Reading becomes effortless as the clock melts away.
Joshua Ferris recently said in an interview -- and at a recent book signing -- that the thing intriguing about every office is this: Even if you don't know everyone very well or at all, EVERYONE has an OPINION about YOU and everyone else.
This may feel like a universal nugget of common sense, but you're not really aware of it until it unfurls between the lines and chapters of this book. The beginning of most chapters include sub-chapter "headlines" which tease you about what's to come. Soon, boredom and irreverence are transformed into hilarity and an almost tender, affectionate quality about everything that happens.
The biggest criticism about "Then We Came to the End" is the skeletal development of its characters. Well, when I got to the last line on the last page, it became more clear to me why this MUST be the case. Every character -- in every chapter but one -- is presented as a "type."
But this feels intentional. The collective "we" is forced to guess what each character is thinking. And like most offices, "we" can only know as much as what we SEE or HEAR. The most trivial information becomes precious and titanic. And the results can be tragic AND funny. The collective "we" can't read minds, so we draw our own conclusions to ridiculous lengths. In the end, we have sketches. And this feels right. How many of our co-workers become life-long friends with whom we trust to share our most intimate secrets? One or two if we're lucky. It takes work - AT WORK - to get beneath the surface of our colleagues. Almost everyone comes off thinly drawn because the collective "we" is forever deprived a complete picture of WHAT and HOW each person thinks.
For example, I know people in my office, but some remain a mystery. When I get together with colleagues, we trade stories about everyone. When one guy leaves the room, we might talk about him. Or not. Most of our stories are sprinkled with guesses and presumptions. Who's deviant? Who's got the gun collection? Who's the lush? Who's got the wild double life? "Someone" might know, but "we" as a group don't.
I would say that "Then We Came to the End" is an observational and episodic novel -- subject to wide interpretation -- because of a literary device that seldom works in most novels. If you're looking for "fleshed out" characters and profound themes, you won't find them here. This book isn't for you and this is not a criticism. Your complaints are justified. I believe expectations matter. A novel so widely acclaimed that disappoints will cause anyone to say out loud, "well, this was all hype" - or - "man oh man, those critics are so out of touch with me."
I still believe Ferris has captured the delicate balance between hilarity, satire and brutal truth, the latter in ways which sound superficial and cliche, but woven in his book as they do, rang true for me.
There's something strange about that colleague you regard with derision or fear on one level, but with admiration and respect the next. And what about work itself? Why is our identity and self-image defined by it? Why does it have to matter more than just a way to put bread on the table? These questions went through my head as I turned each page.
So yeah, I know it's still early. But in my view, "Then We Came To The End" is the most remarkable debut of 2007. While it's difficult to imagine Joshua Ferris topping this, I've no doubt he has a tremendous future and a unique voice that will always feel relevant.
Brilliant first novel...Brilliant Novel February 19, 2007
61 out of 75 found this review helpful
No matter how much we love the established names, the Roths, the Pynchons, the McCarthy's, nothing is quite so exciting as a new author. With that excitement, however, comes the peril of disappointment. Ferris does not disappoint. One gets the feeling upon reading this book that a new but permanent voice is being added to the American literary scene, and that we are lucky to have a book like this on our shelves.
Yes, it is written in the first-person plural, from the perspective of an ad agency, and yes it is laugh-out-loud funny. But the style is no gimmick--it reinforces the subtle cultural commentary offered by the book: a message leavened by the humor and delivered with the lightest of touches. This book is the full package. Ignore it at your own risk.
 Mornings without Promise. April 6, 2007
57 out of 61 found this review helpful
This is an excellent first novel about the employees of that most storied of institutions, an advertising agency. It is simultaneously touching, amusing, and engrossing. It is not, however, the hilarious laugh riot or biting satire that some would claim. Perhaps the sprit of the novel was best summed up in its second sentence, "Our mornings lacked promise." This is a story related by an anonymous narrator about a group of individuals working on the creative staff of a nameless mid-sized Chicago ad agency and it is entirely office centric. The reader sees the people as one would see one's own co-workers in an office setting with only occasional references to homes and families.
As the 21st Century begins, the billings of the agency decline precipitously and being fired or fear of being fired soon becomes a dark undercurrent that runs through everything else that happens in offices and cubicles of the agency's creative staff. As the novel progresses one learns more and more about the quirks and mannerism these hapless folks. Their humanity becomes quite real. If the reader will allow it, you can find yourself actually caring about the individuals that the narrator tells you about. Those of us that are or were knowledge workers will have a haunting sense of familiarity about the people and situations described in this book.
Joshua Ferris has an ear for dialogue and an understanding of emotions that is quite impressive. This reviewer likes his style and the way he structured this novel.
The Must-Read Novel for Office Workers January 5, 2008
26 out of 28 found this review helpful
If you've ever worked in an office, or even if you've only thought about it, this is a must read book. First time novelist Joshua Ferris peels back the layers of office politics and what he finds is pettiness, gossiping ad nauseam, and numerous pranks. Thy humor is a bit sad and reflective, not the laugh-out-loud variety associated with the sitcom "The Office" to which this has been unfairly compared. There is very little plot and the characters suffer from lack of three-dimensional development. Yet, despite these shortcomings, this is a highly readable and enjoyable insight into what makes office workers tick, what makes anyone's work life so repugnant and yet so necessary.
The author uses the collective "we" except for one small part where he steps into the designer shoes of the partner facing cancer. The collective narrator takes you from floor to floor, to the coffee bar and to everyone's office, takes you through the totem pole escapade and the nightmarish shooting incident by a disgruntled former employee. The immediacy is real and you may feel like you have worked with these people before----chances are, you have.
I was lured into buying this because the setting was an advertising agency. Having been a copywriter, I was looking for the witty creative types I recall from such side-splitting funny books as Jerry Della Femina's "From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor." That humor is not here and these supposedly creative types have very little humor. Yet, there lives are so preoccupied by impending layoffs and lack of work that the reader cannot look away from them and their loveable/hateful idiosyncrasies. Like a horrible accident you pass on the side of the road, you have to know what will become of them and when The End comes, who will be left.
 Unpolishable June 18, 2007
21 out of 36 found this review helpful
To borrow Ferris's idiom: this book is an unpolishable turd. All the negatives that I could write have already been written. I can only add this: some reviewers have said, 'you have to have worked in an ad agency to GET it' or to 'fully appreciate' Ferris's brilliance. I worked at a huge Manhattan agency and can say honestly that the book is still garbage. I rank it just above Galt Niederhoffer's debut novel A Taxonomy of Barnacles on my list of books that are destroying American literature.
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