Joshua Ferris

Like a lot of people, I really enjoyed Joshua Ferris's "Then We Came to the End," but I had some misgivings when I purchased this one, his follow-up novel. His decision to use a first-person plural narrator in that novel worked out really well, but was it just a gimmick? And the middle portion of that book, in which the author played it much straighter, wasn't that novel's strongest section. Maybe this guy was a one-hit wonder.

It turns out that "To Rise Again at a Decent Hour" isn't a bad show more novel, but I'm not sure it's a really good novel, either. At least it's different, both structurally and thematically, from his big hit. Where "When We Came to the End" explored the relatively flimsy bonds we form at work, this novel describes the much stronger bonds we form through family and community. It relates the adventures of Paul C. O'Rourke, DDS, spiritual seeker and very lonely man. Dr. O'Rourke, a nonbeliever who was raised in a small, unhappy family desperately craves kinship with others, and takes as his models the families of two ex-girlfriends, one Catholic and the other Jewish, the latter of which still works as his receptionist. One of his dental hygienists is a practicing RC and has that angle covered. One day a mysterious website appears in his name and, after some investigation, Paul discovers he may be the descendant of a long-lost tribe of what I can only call aggressive agnostics, which more or less turns his world upside-down.

Frankly, I feel that how much you'll like this book probably depends on how much you like Dr. O'Rourke. His voice -- intelligent, sarcastic, emotionally helpless -- more or less dominates the novel, for good or ill. He is, in the tradition of dozens of Woody Allen characters, a verbose neurotic who seems to be able to provide exacting descriptions of all of his problems. His business is successful but his life is inhibited and regimented to the point of utter tedium. He's the kind of Red Sox fan who tapes every game and watches every pitch the next day. I think that there's sort of a verisimilitude problem here: most depressed people I know -- and most people who search for answers to the Big Questions, I expect -- tend to be less organized and driven than average, not more. And even though I'm a Red Sox fan myself and know for a fact that Ferris gets all of his team lore exactly right, I'm not sure if this facet of the book isn't a little too cutesy. There's some good storytelling here, especially toward the end, and some likable characters, and some sharp observation, too. There's also a lot about dentistry, and funnily enough, these bits might be the novel's most enjoyable parts. Ferris has obviously done his research, and the way that Dr. O'Rourke thinks about teeth, which shows both scientific rigor and the light touch of a true craftsman, actually makes dental work seem exciting, even vitally alive. Ferris hasn't lost his touch for clever dialogue -- he suggests that some of the arguments about religion that the characters engage in here have been repeated so many times that we really need hear only one side of them to understand what's going on. Maybe there's issues that comic novelists -- even clever comic novelists like Ferris -- should leave alone.

Except that I kind of think that "To Rise Again at a Decent Hour" does make some good points. The alienation and yearning to belong that Dr. O'Rourke, an innate nonbeliever and not much of a joiner,feels seems convincing, and the book might be said to revolve around whether he could possibly achieve the sense of belonging and love that many religious people feel without faith in something. Can you make a faith out of doubt and intellectual probity? Is faith really necessary for happiness? By the time the book ends, Ferris seems to have ably demonstrated how even the nonbelievers among us are forced to take a lot about our existence on faith. Well, the novel makes some other points, too, but maybe you get the picture. In short, this novel has its strong points, but I'm not convinced it's as successful as the author's blockbuster. Dr. O'Rourke might call it a sophomore slump. show less

This meandering tale of a group of co-workers who spend more time gossiping about one another than they do working, even in the face of an economic downturn, makes up in sheer style what it might lack in plot.

Ferris has assembled a cast of characters with the same kind of goofiness that pervaded “The Office” and occasionally even rings with the same tone of “M*A*S*H” or "Catch-22", but without the blood. Even as the reader may be allowed a bit of impatience at the juvenile hijinks of show more the workplace, anyone who has ever worked in an office will recognize the petty frustrations and the ego-driven conflicts. A continuing thread dealing with the poaching of office equipment from recently-vacated cubicles is probably the funniest motif in the book; many of the other situations actually depend on an essential sadness that pervades cubicle-land.

Most of the book is written from an unusual first-person plural viewpoint: “When someone quit, we couldn’t believe it.” “We wanted to die looking stupid in front of Lynn, but we didn’t mind it in front of Joe.” The single exception is a third-person chapter in the midst of all this middle-school nattering in which a character faces the prospect of a looming surgery that is terrifying to her.

“The Thing to Do and the Place to Be” could easily be a stand-alone short story, and one could entertain the notion that the rest of the novel actually sprang up to accompany it. Powerful and frightening, it’s something that will stick with the reader for a long time, particularly if they have ever found themselves at a similar crossroads.

Ferris wraps all this up with a bittersweet coda set at a time when the team has gone their separate ways. Some questions are answered – a few with borderline unbelievable resolutions -- while others are allowed to play out unresolved.

Kind of like life, actually. show less

It's not like affluent white guys living in New York don't have problems. But a book about the anxieties of an affluent New Yorker will have to work harder to get me to care. Joshua Ferris is a fantastic writer, but even he could not get me to do much more than shrug about his protagonist's worries.

In To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, Paul O'Rourke, newly divorced, Red Sox fan and a dentist with a successful Manhattan practice, is driven by doubt. He's made it the center of who he is, even as show more he longs for a father figure. His ex-wife is Jewish and he longs to be a part of her extended, affectionate family and despite his atheism he has thrown himself into the celebrations and rituals they practice. He's also terrified of death, his own, but mostly the potential loss of anyone he loves, causing him to refuse to have children or even own a pet. Then someone creates a website for his dental practice, interspersing segments from a biblical-sounding document in with the staff biographies.

There's no doubt that this novel is both clever and humorous. It reminds me of The Finkler Question in many respects. But, in the end, I was not won over, despite Paul's desperate desire for connection. I have been more diligent with my flossing, however. A novel about a dentist will do that. show less

Poor Joshua Ferris. The classy contemporary writers of literary fiction who've blurbed his novel Then We Came to the End have compared him to Joseph Heller ("Then We Came to the End is the Catch-22 of the business world…" says Jim Shepard) and Peter DeVries ("…penned with a Devriesian sharpness…" according to Katharine Weber); they proclaim, "This is a novel, by God!" (Geoffrey Wolff) and "Awfully funny." (Nick Hornby). Geoff Dyer even observes that "It almost made me wish I had a show more job." What a burden for a first time novelist! Even if he's got a good book--which Joshua Ferris certainly does here--what lofty expectations to set for a prospective reader. I'm happy to say that, although I would not compare this novel to the work of Joseph Heller nor that of Peter DeVries (not as cynical as the one nor as cranky as the other), and although I wouldn't call it awfully funny, it was--as Geoffrey Wolff says--"a novel, by God!" And a damned good one.

Then We Came to the End is composed of three sections. Ferris employs, in the first and third of these, an unusual and somewhat risky narrative voice. He uses the first person plural to create a narrator who is both of the action--"We were fractious and overpaid," the book begins. "Our mornings lacked promise."--and above it, as an omniscient presence. This device, which for the first fifty pages or so felt cold, detached and gimmicky, warmed, as the book progressed, becoming intimate and inviting, and as the reader got into the minds and lives of the characters she began to feel included as a part of the action.

The successes and tragedies of these characters, from the insignificant--squabbling with the wannabe-supply-sergeant of an office coordinator who has her own system of serial numbers to track furniture and ensure that it stays in the office to which it's been assigned, to the heart-rending--the bottomless grief of the mother of a murdered child, who has to pass the giant billboard advertising her child as missing every evening on her way home from work, because the vendor who owns the space doesn't have a new ad to place there--slowly become the reader's own successes and tragedies. And when, in the short (thirty- four pages) second part of the book the narration switches to the more traditional third person omniscient, and concentrates on just one character, it just, well, feels right.

Then We Came to the End has been compared to Office Space and The Office, and there is some validity to those comparisons, such as, say, a recognition of the inherent absurdity of spending forty hours a week in intimate contact with complete strangers. But as good as the aforementioned pieces of film are, Joshua Ferris's novel is that much better. It might not make you "wish you had a job" as it did Geoff Dyer (after all, who really wants to work in a big, soul-sucking office?), but it will certainly make you glad you've taken the time to read. show less