Joshua Ferris

No one knows us quite the same way as the men and women who sit beside us in department meetings and crowd the office refrigerator with their labeled yogurts. Every office is a family of sorts, and the ad agency Joshua Ferris brilliantly depicts in his debut novel is family at its strangest and best, coping with a business downturn in the time-honored way : through gossip, pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks. Among coworkers fighting for...

After noticing his identity has been stolen and used to create various social media accounts, a man with a troubled past, Paul O'Rourke, begins to wonder if his virtual alter ego is actually a better version of himself. "Paul O'Rourke is a man made of contradictions: he loves the world, but doesn't know how to live in it. He's a Luddite addicted to his iPhone, a dentist with a nicotine habit, a rabid Red Sox fan devastated by their victories, and...

These eleven stories by Joshua Ferris, many of which were first published in The New Yorker, are at once thrilling, strange, and comic. The modern tribulations of marriage, ambition, and the fear of missing out as the temptations flow like wine and the minutes of life tick down are explored with the characteristic wit and insight that have made Ferris one of our most critically acclaimed novelists.

After a gypsy predicts that Rose's violent husband will kill her, Rose grabs a gun and her dog Gretel and sets out on a cross-country escape, following messages that her missing mother has left for her and unraveling family secrets.

Charleston ďbutante Sarah Walters moves to New York to attend college and learns that the lessons taught at the Cotillion Training School do not necessarily apply to relationships in the big city.

"The heartwarming true story of how one special cocker spaniel turned four strangers into family"--Provided by publisher.

Her marriage challenged by an insane, irresistible love affair, Julie decides to leave town and immerse herself in a new obsession: butchery.

Perhaps the most enduring legacy of the Industrial Revolution is, for better or for worse, our inclination to define who were are by what we do, and this essential new issue of Granta will lay bare the intrinsic link between work and identity.