Photo © Kelly Campbell.

About the Book and Author

A wickedly funny first novel about life in the office.

Joshua Ferris’s first novel, Then We Came to the End, was published in March, 2007 by Little, Brown & Company. It has sold in 18 countries and has been shortlisted for the National Book Award and longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Granta, Tin House, New Stories From the South, Best New American Voices, The Guardian, The Iowa Review and Prairie Schooner. He attended the University of Iowa and the University of California, Irvine. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife.

Suggested Links

Author and book website
http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com

BookPage interview
http://www.bookpage.com

Then We Started Hearing about Joshua Ferris
Dave Weich, Powells.com
http://www.powells.com/interviews

Things I’d Rather Be Doing – interview
http://www.tirbd.com

AUDIO & VIDEO

Fresh Air from WHYY, April 23, 2007
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9775501

Between the Sheets: Writers Revealed
Sunday, June 10, 2007
http://writersrevealed.com/shows

YouTube Promo Video for Then We Came to the End
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qxQj2dVfp8

Excerpt from Then We Came to the End

WE WERE FRACTIOUS AND overpaid. Our mornings lacked promise. At least those of us who smoked had something to look forward to at ten-fifteen. Most of us liked most everyone, a few of us hated specific individuals, one or two people loved everyone and everything. Those who loved everyone were unanimously reviled. We loved free bagels in the morning. They happened all too infrequently. Our benefits were astonishing in comprehensiveness and quality of care. Sometimes we questioned whether they were worth it. We thought moving to India might be better, or going back to nursing school. Doing something with the handicapped or working with our hands. No one ever acted on these impulses, despite their daily, sometimes hourly contractions. Instead we met in conference rooms to discuss the issues of the day.

Ordinarily jobs came in and we completed them in a timely and professional manner. Sometimes fuckups did occur. Printing errors, transposed numbers.Our business was advertising and details were important. If the third number after the second hyphen in a client's toll-free number was a six instead of an eight, and if it went to print like that, and showed up in Time magazine, no one reading the ad could call now and order today. No matter they could go to the website, we still had to eat the price of the ad. Is this boring you yet? It bored us every day.Our boredom was ongoing, a collective boredom, and it would never die because we would never die.