Then we came to the End

Then We Came to the End,
by Joshua Ferris

• Business area: advertising
• Country: United States
• Language level: medium

Then We Came To The End is set in a Chicago advertising agency. In the post-dot-com era, staff layoffs seem to happen daily. As the firm’s projects dry up, the employees spend their days trying to look busy and talking about who will be the next to “walk Spanish” (be fired). Told in the collective “we” form, the novel describes the lives and strange habits of each worker through coffee-break intrigue and water-cooler gossip. Then We Came to the End is an entertaining but not a difficult read, as it focuses mainly on the relationships within this “group of strangers we call colleagues”. It also provides some useful vocabulary from the advertising industry and corporate America.

Viking Penguin, ISBN 978-0-670-91656-6, €13.90.

• First Chapter