Office daze

I was really excited to read Joshua Ferris' Then We Came to the End. It's about workers at an ad agency in Chicago in the late 90s, faced with lay-offs brought on by shrinking advertising budgets. As you can see, it's got a gorgeous cover and it was heaped with praise when it came out in hardback last year. I work in an office, and I was intrigued by a novel from a promising young writer about my daily reality. Spring was in the air and it was time to lighten up and read some humourous fiction. It started promisingly enough:

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 everyone, a few of us hated specific individuals, one or two people loved everyone and everything. Those who loved everyone were unanimously reviled.

The first person plural narrator initially seemed like a quirky way of getting the reader instantly inside the gossip-y world of the strangers forced to spend most of their waking lives together as colleagues. A stream of characters were introduced, and some details were spot on - Marcia with her 80s hairstyle and continued devotion to the bands she worshipped as a teenager, the woman still a teenager in her head; Jim Jackers, with his insecure desire to be loved by all and his fear of the blank page, the archetypal college kid transitioning to adulthood.

But I couldn't get hooked on the story. The first person plural narrator stopped being quirky and just started grating. I didn't care about the characters, so I didn't really care about the endless firings. I didn't care enough to follow who was laid off when. And, crucially, I didn't care about the tragedies playing out in these characters' lives. I wasn't moved by the mother of the murdered child handicapped by grief. I didn't care about the suicidal Carl Garbedian, with his existential crisis and marital problems. I found most of it profoundly depressing, particularly the bullying and isolation of Joe Pope.

I had a reprieve in the middle of the book. For a brief chapter Ferris moved into third person singular, following the character of Lynn, a partner at the ad firm. His writing here was much better, portraying a woman used to being in control during a very vulnerable time. The depth and complexity on display were so much more appealing to me and gives me faith that Joshua Ferris is a writer of talent if he can move beyond stylistic posturing. And it helped me get through the book, as I think I would have put it down otherwise.

This book made me wonder, yet again, about what goes on in reviewing circles. Had any of these reviewers every actually worked in an office? Perhaps if they hadn't, it would explain how they could find such a depressing book "dazzling" and "stunning" and the like. It's funny how there's usually such a consensus around debuts like this, like he's been annointed the hot writer with the buzz for the year, so nearly every reviewer is going to treat his debut as the best thing they've read. But it's certainly reminded me that I need to get back to my usual policy of ignoring the critical guff on prelims and jacket blurbs...