# Then We Came to the End

By Joshua Ferris

Profile: https://hahafiction.com/books/then-we-came-to-the-end-252cb232/

At a Chicago advertising agency, the staff are running out of work and wondering who will lose a job next. Colleagues keep track of one another's chairs and private lives while trying to interpret news about their boss's health. They tell the story largely as a collective 'we.'

## What makes it funny?

A desirable office chair becomes grounds for collective indignation. Elsewhere, a manager checks his own breath and armpits before discovering that someone has hidden sushi behind his bookshelf; building security eventually investigates the stench.

### The comedy at work

The office's 'we' treats petty grievances as shared wisdom. That group voice lets Ferris show how easily colleagues agree about someone else's failings, then admit their own fear, jealousy or need for company.

### Try this if…

Office veterans may recognize the fierce attention paid to matters that look trivial from outside. Readers drawn to unusual narrators also get a group whose constant scrutiny of coworkers includes flashes of compassion.

### Good to know

Layoffs, cancer and death sit alongside the jokes, and the opening includes strong language. Most of the book uses a collective narrator, with an extended departure from that perspective.

## What to expect

- Genre: Contemporary & literary
- On the shelf: Workplace comedy
- Kind of humor: Dark comedy · Satire · Situational comedy
- Format: Novel
- Published: 2007

## A few distinguishing details

- A collective narrator speaking for an advertising office
- Workplace rivalries under the threat of layoffs

## Sources & further reading

- Reading sample: [Then We Came to the End: opening excerpt — BookBrowse](https://www.bookbrowse.com/excerpts/index.cfm/book_number/1959/page_number/1/then-we-came-to-the-end)
- Review: [Then We Came to the End — Publishers Weekly](https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-316-01638-4)
- Publisher: [Then We Came to the End — Penguin](https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/55867/then-we-came-to-the-end-by-joshua-ferris/9780141027630)