Thomas Mullen

I recently read Joshua Ferris' much-hyped, National-Book-Award-nominated debut novel, Then We Came To The End. As a fellow first-novelist, it would be so easy for me to say it was overhyped, that he didn't deserve the cover of the New York Times Book Review, that he's yet another young Brooklynite writer, that blah blah blah. I even put off reading it for a while (bought it in hardcover months ago -- it's now out in paperback) just because I didn't want to face such feelings, or be filled with envy if the book did turn out to be That Good. Well, it is That Good.

In fact, I can happily report that Ferris' book is so good that I wasn't even envious, didn't feel bitter, didn't feel snarky -- just felt the Warm Fuzzy of literary joy to be reading something so funny, so entertaining, so emotionally right. I tip my cap to the man. I wish upon him even more praise, and even more sales.

For those of you who missed the hype, Then We Came To The End can be summarized (thinly, but not inaccurately) as the literary-novel equivalent of TV's The Office, but without that show's uncomfortable sense of sadomasochist voyeurism. It's set in a Chicago ad agency and takes place during the dot-com crash, dramatizing an impending series of layoffs, office affairs, cubicle shenanigans, and the other happenings that somehow keep us going from Monday through Friday. I laughed out loud, in public, several times while reading it; during an unexpectedly tense sequence late in the novel, I did that "cover-the-bottom-half-of-the-page-with-your-hand" thing so I wouldn't accidentally read the dramatic end of a chapter before I was supposed to.

And as a writer who did not go the MFA route, who has not been in the academic system for his writing apprenticeship, and who (I admit) has something of a chip on his shoulder about this, I was so pleased to read a book that dared to address Work. Work as setting, yes, but work as existential issue, work as identity, work both as unavoidable impediment to and intrinsic part of our happiness. So many writers (especially writers in my generation) don't seem to have much 9-to-5 experience, having shuttled from college to grad school to teaching appointments, and it was so refreshing to see someone write about a subject that, in my opinion, has been entirely overlooked in the canon, especially of late. Writers -- either because they're in school as students and then as teachers, or because they've been successful enough to write full-time or take piecemeal work as journalists -- are less likely than Normal Folks to have normal jobs, which explains the gap in the canon. I'm not saying teaching isn't a real job -- I am the son and brother of teachers -- I'm just saying, come on, there is no shortage of novels about professors, or journalists, or grad students. We need more books exploring the myriad enraging, perplexing, infatuating, annoying aspects of that thing that happens to us in our offices. The feeling of being trapped there, of yearning for more, of hoping that the Job can provide the very escape we so desperately seek, of wondering what happens when that escape hasn't come, whether it's the fault of the Job or (no!) some fault of our own. (And hopefully people will actually want to read such books, though sometimes I think publishers assume they won't, unless the characters' jobs are in publishing.) Thus ends my quasi-Marxist anti-academia plug/rant.

Seriously: Buy the book on your next coffee break, and start reading it on the one after that, and you'll thank me.


link to this | File:  Book Reviews 

Well, the good people of New York are losing their unfaithful Governor today, but they get me in return! I'm off to Upstate New York to participate in a Community Reads project. The organizers of "A Tale for Three Counties" chose my book as their 2008 Community Reads; I'll be giving talks and signings at four locations spread across three counties in Western New York, between Buffalo and Rochester.

Spearheaded by libraries, universities, and city halls, Community Reads have been taking off over the last few years. At a time when Americans are reading fewer books, and are particularly less likely to read fiction, these projects are a much-needed way to inspire renewed interest in the pleasures of literature. Writers don't often get a chance to interact with readers, so this is an unusual opportunity for me to get feedback and see the many ways in which readers have interpreted the words I put on the page.

Luckily The Last Town on Earth seems to be generating a lot of interest from universities (for All-Freshman Reads) and other communities over the past few months; this is the first in a handful of similar projects I'll be doing this year.

Librarians, university profs and administrators who organize Community Reads might want to take a look at the Web site created by "A Tale For Three Counties". They've done a great job taking the book in different directions, with a college art exhibit on "plague art," a library presentation of items belonging to a WWI soldier, a "review contest" for readers, and articles by the local paper discussing what would happen to their communities should a new epidemic break out. Good stuff, and it's great that people have found so much to delve into.

The local paper, the Batavia Daily News, recently posted an interview with yours truly: here's the
link.

While in Buffalo I'll be doing my first TV interview! If I can figure out how, I'll post a link to the video when I get back...

link to this | File:  Book Clubs  Community Reads