Fiction Book Reviews

Book Review: Then We Came to the End

By Sandy Amazeen Mar 4, 2007, 21:43 GMT

Fans of the popular BBC comedy “The Office” are sure to appreciate the humor and nuances of this debut offering set in dog eat dog world of a Chicago advertising company. The employees are bound together by their mutual hatred of the mind numbing work and office politics that frequently includes speculation on each other’s private lives. As the company begins scaling back with endless rounds of firings the hapless workers begin fixating on the “better” office furnishings left behind, particularly a chair, with entertaining results. Clinical depression, petty jealousies, interoffice affairs, one woman’s reactions to the death of her daughter and more serve to keep the narration lively from start to finish. It is clear that Ferris knows office environments as he writes of rife between supervisors and grunts, the nonverbal pecking orders and sheer boredom of serving time at a thankless job. He uses these elements to create a believable statement on the “rat race” and the basic nature of office “families”, savor this one.