I just finished Then We Came to the End, the much-lauded debut novel by Brooklyner Joshua Ferris that came out last year. Unlike other overhyped debut novels by fashionable Brooklyners (i.e. Indecision by Benjamen Kunkel), it lived up to the buzz and then some.
The often-hilarious book is set in an ad agency in Chicago during the dot-com bust, and it’s written in the first-person collective tense, which is strange at first but really works with a book that focuses on the hive mind of an office. It still has stand-out characters and never feels too clever for its own good.
Beyond the initial humor that comes through with the details of the office and what the poor bastards stuck there do to stay sane during layoffs, what brings it a step above is the notion that, at the end of the day, it’s not all bad. It doesn’t just take the easy route by calling office life soulless and deadening, but shows the humanity that arises when you’re forced to work with a bunch of people you don’t have much in common with for 50 hours a week.
Not that I work in an office or anything. But still, highly reccomended to anyone that’s looking for a book that’s both funny and affecting.