This is going to sound like a terribly nice thing to say, but here it goes: I like working here. If you’ve got to get up, do battle with the London Underground, and sit somewhere all day, every day, I reckon Penguin’s a pretty good place to do it.
Still, when I first read Joshua Ferris’s outstanding satire on office life, Then We Came to the End, I couldn’t help laughing the laugh of recognition. There are two reasons for this: on one hand, you don’t have to hate your job to understand what it means to hate your job; and on the other, Ferris’ novel is not really about that. It’s a sophisticated, nuanced, and incredibly knowing look at what it’s like to have to spend most of your waking life surrounded by that most nebulous category of fellow human being: the colleague. It dramatizes with shocking accuracy the ways in which the office is at root a society in miniature, with all its attendant amicability, enmity and freakishness.
If you find such distinctions helpful (you may not), Then We Came to the End is probably what you’d call a “literary” novel (somewhere north, say, of middlebrow), and it’s remarkably heartening to see that it’s been given the support of the Richard and Judy Book Club. What’s been interesting to watch is the way that since its inclusion on the R & J list, Then We Came to the End has really caught fire around Penguin. You might reasonably call it a “buzz” if that wasn’t the kind of word Ferris makes fun of in his book. However, before you start thinking that I’m stating the very bloody obvious, let me try to explain what I mean.
Since its acquisition in 2006 and its hardback publication in 2007, Then We Came to the End has been the
object of much in-house love. Some of this, no doubt, can be chalked up to the book being written in the first person plural (“we”) and telling a kind of everyman story about people who, like us, work in offices. It also helped that the author is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. When the book was finally published to universal acclaim, we all had the little glow you get from being told that you’re right about something. It sold well for a hardback, but the numbers were still kind of modest. We had high hopes for the paperback, but again, because it’s a literary book we were curbing – if not our enthusiasm – then at least our expectations. Then something like R & J come along and makes everyone happy.
For starters, you’re chuffed because you know how many people are going to read and love this book. You imagine them on trains, and buses, and in armchairs and shop queues, laughing or nodding at all the right bits. Then you think what a difference this is going to make, financially, to a young author who lives in a small flat in Brooklyn. And finally, you remember something that’s worth being reminded of every so often: that there is still, despite all the things competing for people’s attention, a great, shark-like appetite for outstanding books. Having a book picked for the R & J list is wonderful news for a publisher, and it although to some it might feel a bit like a lottery, we can’t help feeling that anything to spread the message that, as Nick Hornby once put it, “books…are better than anything else", is a Very Good Thing indeed.
Jon Elek, Viking Assistant Editor
(Picture from Cubelife series by Philip Toledano)
..........................................................................
...........................................................................