My one-line review of Ferris’ Then We Came to the End: why isn’t working in an office as hilarious as reading about it? I’ve done plenty of the former, very little of the latter, which raises the question: where are the other novels/poems/stories/cartoon strips about office life? Okay, there’s Dilbert. Maybe there’s only so much material to mine.
The book is in the first person plural (mostly), a brilliant stroke in a milieu where conformity is normative. Ferris also does a top-notch job playing fast and loose with the chronology; time feels different behind those brown cubicle walls, I tell you. It’ll have you believing there is no time, no motion−that everything is simply a trick of the brain. Or to be seasonal: a trick or treat of the brain.
I’m reading with Ferris this year at the IFOA. Quite pumped about it, with my bonus Hospitality Suite privileges and all-access pass. It’s like being a roadie for Oasis.
Couple of Hayflick reviews: one new from Event (excerpted by Coach House), one old now posted online at Matrix.
