Seth Marko, avid and discerning reader of books (so few of these left!) and author of The Book Catapult, was kind enough to give Culture Lust some love and wrote for us the following review of Joshua Ferris' Then We Came to the End.  Make sure to check out Seth's website and other book recommendations.  

Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris. 

“Genevieve had blond hair, cobalt eyes, and a tall, gelid grace. Even the women admitted her superior beauty. On Christmas one year, she was given as a gag gift a set of twisted redneck teeth, which she was instructed to wear year round in an effort to even us all out. But when she put them on, we discovered – the men among us, that is – a desire for rotted teeth we never knew we had.”

About a year ago – several months before the March 2007 release date – I got my hands on an advance copy of Joshua Ferris’s debut novel, “Then We Came to the End”.  The book’s jacket described it as “wickedly funny” yet “bighearted.”   But I thought its workplace, cubicle setting seemed like a setup for a playful novelization of “The Office.”  Would this be something I could read 375 pages of and enjoy? The publisher then sent me one of those notepaper cubes for my desk, coated in post-it note yellow and festooned with the author’s name & book title. I realized then the book would stay in my field of view for a long time. (The pad of paper has like 10,000 sheets, those crafty marketing departments)  Nevertheless, I read only 50 pages, got distracted by something darker & grimmer, and sent Ferris back into my endless, Jenga pile of books. 

Then, in December 2007, the New York Times released their annual ten Best Books of the Year list – 5 fiction, 5 non-fiction. I met several people who purchased all ten books as gifts for friends – regardless of their friends’ taste or reading habits, but simply because the Times suggested them. That’s power you can’t mess with. Of course, Mr. Ferris’s book was on this year’s list – now I couldn’t possibly resist!