Joshua Ferris's debut novel, Then We Came to the End, is a virtually unique book - an entire novel told in the first person plural, starting :-We were fractious and overpaid. Our mornings lacked promise. At least those of us who smoked had something to look forward to at ten-fifteen. Most of us liked most everyone, a few of us hated specific individuals, one or two people loved everyone and everything. Those who loved everyone were unanimously reviled.
What follows (set in a Chicago advertising agency) is an extraordinary technical achievement, but also a consistently funny and often disturbing take on American life and the workplace. It’s also about the nature (and lack) of our individuality, and the ways systems and institutions seep into the fibre of our lives.
Ferris writes on office life in the Guardian here, and the book’s website is here.
JMG
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