The narrator of this novel, which was a National Book Award nominee, offers a microscopic depiction of office life at the end of the dot-com boom. She works at an advertising firm that is beginning to downsize and lay off employees. Spending eight or more hours a day with other men and women in cubicles trying to cope with work and the unknown future of the firm has made these people a family, with all its dysfunctions. Some co-workers play pranks on each other. Some are workaholics. Some steal office supplies. Tempers flare over petty behaviors. The gossip and meetings could happen in any company. As the jobs disappear, the remaining employees pretend to work and look for meaning in their day.

The details of this story are carefully crafted, making these people
familiar to us. We care about them as we do our own co-workers, even
though we really don't know them. We see all the odd personalities, all
the human characteristics that make us crazy. We feel that we are part
of the family, waiting to see who will be laid off next, who is having
an affair, who has trouble at home, what happens when the cancer
diagnosis is real.

Deanna Hurst reads the novel as though she were telling us her story. We could be talking over the water cooler about the week at work. She is easy to follow and allows the drama and humor of the situations to speak for themselves.