“Then We Came to the End” is a problematic novel, at once slapstick funny and, in an extended middle section, straightforward serious narrative. After pondering the total effect of the book, I admit I have problems with the mix.

The basic story line of the novel by Joshua Ferris concerns a declining ad agency in Chicago. In scenes sometimes ripped from the headlines of “The Office,” we hear about the usual shenanigans: office romance between Larry and Amber resulting in a constant nag from Larry to Amber to get an abortion to save his marriage, obviously not to Amber. There is the heart-stoppingly lovely Genevieve, Marcia, severe until she gets a haircut, Tom, who everybody suspects will eventually go postal, fat Benny who is in love with Marcia but can’t find a way to tell her, and others. The catalyst for most of the action is the consecutive firing of the cast of characters. The ad agency is not only declining but winding down. It has come to this: the major ad campaign the agency works on is a pro bono campaign for breast cancer awareness in which the client, who nobody can find record of, has asked for a campaign that will make breast cancer victims laugh.

As impossible to accomplish as that seems, everybody gives it a go, partly because of one of the many rumors in the office: Lynn, the manager, has breast cancer and is to go in for surgery. Lynn and her lover, Martin, are the subjects of the long straight narrative section that is 1) too long and 2) too different in style to fit into the tone of the rest of the book. The madcap nature of the persons who inhabit the agency clashes with Lynn’s seriousness and her phobia concerning hospitals. The section stops the action and, by focusing on one character seriously, makes even more peripheral our concerns about the others.

There are many manic turns in this novel, the most manic of which may be the studied dismantling of an office chair by one of the fired employees, a scene that ends with the parts of the chair being flung into Lake Michigan. But many of the manic turns seem to have no purpose other than to stir the waters without opening the drain. I found myself impatient for the story to get somewhere and was ultimately disappointed that it never seemed to get anywhere in a meaningful way.