Then We Came to the End

A special Tenth Anniversary Edition of the dazzling National Book Award finalist. "What looks at first glance like a sweet-tempered satire of workplace culture is revealed upon closer inspection to be a very serious novel about, well, America. It may even be, in its own modest way, a great American novel." --Los Angeles Times Ten years ago, Joshua Ferris burst onto the scene with Then We Came to the End, a hilarious, urgent novel about where most of us spend the majority of our time-the office. Ferris's debut was nominated for a National Book Award and was selected as one of the top ten best books of 2007 by The New York Times, Time Magazine and Entertainment Weekly. Every office is a family of sorts, and the Chicago ad agency Ferris depicts is family at its best and worst, coping with a business downturn in the time-honored way: through gossip, elaborate pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks. As they attempt to stave off the inevitable, the cast of this expansive epic contend not just with job loss, but with breakdowns, break-ups, and rounds of Celebrity Death Match that force them to confront their own mortality. With an unerring 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. Hailed by the New York Times as "expansive, great-hearted, and acidly funny," Then We Came to the End proves to be every bit as relevant and relatable as it was when it first appeared. "As funny as The Office, as sad as an abandoned stapler, Then We Came to the End is that rare novel that feels absolutely contemporary, and that rare comedy that feels blisteringly urgent." -Time