The initial flat affect and vaguely disorienting first person plural narrative voice of “Then We Came to the End” might be off-putting at first. (“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.”) The reader who sticks with it, though, will be richly rewarded with a surprisingly warm and very human look at the dehumanizing aspects, of which there are many, of the modern office/workplace.

Set in a Chicago marketing agency with its wagon hitched to the rise and fall of the dotcom era, “we” are the art directors, copywriters, managers, assistants, accounting and payroll clerks and security guards who battle deadlines and boredom and harbour passions for and against the work and each other … but truly know very little about each other outside of the offices, cubicles, elevator lobbies, print stations, stairwells and cafeterias where they seemingly spend most of their waking hours. Gradually, three-dimensional people emerge from the caricatures and sardonic one-liners, and real emotions surface as those real people struggle to maintain their identities and sanity and forge genuine relationships as the world around them shifts, jolts and changes. This novel takes a fresh approach to the perhaps overdone workplace setting and cast of characters.