Then We Came to the End

Then We Came to the End was Joshua Ferris’s first novel, published on March 1, 2007. I bought and read the hardback in 2007. I have listened to the audiobooks of Joshua Ferris’s other novels, and I had a yearning to listen to the audiobook of this novel. Unfortunately, and infuriatingly, the only audiobook available is abridged.

Most of the book is written in the first person plural, where “we” are colleagues who work at a slowly failing advertising agency. The story is about how “we” form a kind of family at work, with all the benefits and irritations of belonging to the group.

As with all jobs, people come and go, some leaving voluntarily and some being fired or laid off, whereupon they disappear from the lives of their former colleagues. There is the sorrow at saying good-bye to the people who are laid off. “We” are often miserable while at work but elated when “we” are not included in the latest round of layoffs.

There is also the sense of betrayal from saying good-bye to the people who have left voluntarily for another job.

The middle section is written by an omniscient third person narrator, where the section focuses on a woman colleague (and boss) who is afraid to deal with her breast cancer. This part of the book is sensitively and movingly written. This part of the book explores how “we” might want to care for a colleague who needs help, but there’s the distance between “us” and her that is impossible to bridge, so “our” efforts mean well but are often completely awkward and ineffective.

Chapter 54 of the abridged edition ends on September 10, 2011, the day before terrorists flew two jetliners into the Twin Towers in New York City, a third jetliner into the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., and crashed a fourth jetliner in a field in Pennsylvania.

In the last week of August 2001 and in the first ten days of that September, there were more layoffs than in all the months preceding them. But, by the grace of God, the rest of us hung on, hating each other more than we ever thought possible. Then we came to the end of another bright and tranquil summer.

Chapter 56 picks up five years later with a reunion of sorts when “we” are invited to a reading of a book published by a former colleague.

The book is narrated by Deanna Hurst, who does a very good job.

Joshua Ferris’s other novels, all very good, are:

• The Unnamed (September 14, 2010)
• To Rise Again at a Decent Hour (May 6, 2014)
• A Calling for Charlie Barnes (September 28, 2021)

My rating: Four stars, very good.