Finally Got To The End Of Then We Came To The End

• Date: 30.05.2010
• Book: Then We Came to the End: A Novel
• Author: SoulPundit

Review

For the workaday professionals bound in the fishbowl of office life, Joshua Ferris’ freshman novel, Then We Came To The End, will be familiar territory with comical twists and reminiscent characters. The story covers the intertwined office and often personal lives of an advertising firm’s employees as they endure the turbulent bust period of the dot-com era.

Ferris imbues his book with rich characters who display the anti-social, psychotic group think prevalent but overlooked in the 9 to 5 office existence. Conversations around watercolors spawn plots and generate resentment among the advertising employees who answer to Joe Pope, even though they report to the bigger than life Lynn Mason.

The book is written in the first person plural which allows us to sit inside the heads of the employees as they cycle through their madness. Ever looked at a co-worker in dread and wondered, what in the world were they thinking? If you could think in first person plural, you would know. The technique is useful in painting a full picture of the dysfunction generated by the band of misfits comprising the staff. What used to be thought of as the ‘royal we’ could now be considered the ‘corporate we’,” says Ferris when asked about the style in an interview at the end of the book.

As the company loses clients they begin to go into perpetual downsizing mode. As the team is arbitrarily and summarily dismantled and sent packing, the groveling office mates shift their attitudes, their allegiances, their gripes, and their complaints, each survivor thankful for another day’s reprieve from “walking Spanish” – a euphemism concocted by surviving employees. The quirky, funny and unique euphemism of course is code for being fired.

They’re prisoners of their own making, delusional in their desire to control and know the tidbits of everyone’s life. Case in point, the group can’t understand why Benny the Jew would hold on to a totem pole left to him by an old deceased office worker who lived for nothing more than his daily cigarette, often smoked in the bitter cold. When the answer for his affection for the totem pole escapes the group, they create their own answers to suite their tastes.

Each character lends a unique color to the rainbow that is the we. Tom Moto, before he is let go is the free spirit in the bunch who rebels in hopes of inspiring. He is the poster boy for “when keeping it real goes to far.” After he is let go, rather than being remembered for the inspirational challenge to authority, he is feared as the one that could come back and go postal.

In Ferris’ book we find the cynical nature inherent in the American dream. Spending all of our time at a job most can’t stand so that we can hold on to the safety of the American dream buckled tightly into the drivers seat of our Mercedes and Beamers. It is the safety found in the mindless work that protects our image of ourselves and who we are in life. It is a comical look at American life that shows the irony of inept communication and under appreciation of those we spend much of our lives with.

The book took a little while to get into, but once it got going, I felt the character development was strong, the writing was crisp and fresh. The plot meandered but it seemed right in line with the lives lead by the characters. For anyone searching for the something to help quantify the value found in the average workplace, pick up this book and enjoy.