num_pages: 387
description: The dot-com bubble has burst and rolling layoffs have hit an unnamed Chicago advertising firm sending employees into an escalating siege mentality as their numbers dwindle. As a parade of employees depart, bankers boxes filled with their personal effects, those left behind raid their fallen comrades' offices, sifting through the detritus for the errant desk lamp or Aeron chair.Written with confidence in the tricky-to-pull-off first-person plural, the collective fishbowl perspective of the "we" voice nails the dynamics of cubicle culture--the deadlines, the gossip, the elaborate pranks to break the boredom, the joy of discovering free food in the breakroom. Arch, achingly funny, and surprisingly heartfelt, it's a view of how your work becomes a symbiotic part of your life. A dysfunctional family of misfits forced together and fondly remembered as it falls apart.
language: English
title: Then We Came to the End
titlecomplete: Then We Came to the End
genres: Fiction, Book Club, Humor, Unfinished, Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Adult, Literature, Novels
ratings_count: 35074
places: Chicago, Illinois
awards: awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: Guardian First Book Award
category: Longlist, awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: Financial Times Business Book of the Year
category: Longlist, awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: National Book Award Finalist
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel
publisher: Viking