Then We Came to the End

Then We Came to the End

Summary

A HILARIOUS SATIRE THAT SHOWS OFFICE DYNAMICS AT THEIR MOST PETTY AND PROFOUND FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR, JOSHUA FERRIS

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, clinging to his ergonomic chair; Lynn, the boss, whose breast cancer everyone pretends not to talk about; Carl, secretly taking someone else's medication; Marcia, 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.

*Joshua Ferris' mind-blowing new book, A Calling for Charlie Barnes, is available to pre-order now.*

'Very funny, intense and exhilarating . . . For the first time in fiction, it has truly captured the way we work' The Times

'As dazzling as Franzen's The Corrections and as confident as Tartt's The Secret History . . . Exceptional, very funny' Daily Telegraph

'Slick, sophisticated and very funny, Ferris's cracking debut has modern Everyman fighting for his identity in an increasingly impersonal world' Daily Mail

Reviews

  • Outstanding, hugely satisfying, exceptionally well-executed . . . An incisive, urgent, funny and snappily written novel
    Sunday Times Magazine

About the author

Joshua Ferris

Joshua Ferris was born in Illinois in 1974. He is the author of four novels and one collection of short stories. His debut, Then We Came to the End, won the PEN/Hemingway award and was shortlisted for the National Book Award and his most recent novel, To Rise Again at A Decent Hour, was nominated for the Booker Prize and won the Dylan Thomas Prize. He lives in upstate New York.
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