EXCERPTED FROM THE CHAPTER: QUINN IN LOVE

Again the Boss hasn’t come in.  The girls are mostly camped out at the widescreen drinking various juices concocted from a deluxe juicer Tanya ordered off HSN.  I have no idea where Lewis has gotten off to.  Half the time I can’t remember who works here anymore. 

“Will you be bringing Sheilah to The States?”  I ask Quinn.

“Let’s take this in the Boss’s office,” he says.

In the two chairs at the Boss’s desk we cut the ends of Quinn’s cigars with his special cigar knife and light up.  

“Remember when the Boss always had clients in these chairs,” says Quinn blowing smoke rings. “Those were the good days.”  After a little while he stands up.  “Think I’ll borrow the Boss’s chair.  See how it feels smoking a cigar like it feels to the Boss.”  

Sooner or later everyone tries out the Boss’s chair.  Not me; not yet.

“I like the swivel action,” he says twirling in the chair.

“Enjoy yourself.”

We puff in silence.  Restful.  In a corner his dog Pretzel  seems to be snoozing.  No one is shouting,  complaining,  putting someone else down.  And the widescreen is way up front,  too far away to know it even exists.  

“You have a picture of Sheilah?”  I ask Quinn.

“On my mobile.”  He grins handing it over, and I’m staring at this beautiful woman with her head thrown back.  Hair that’s true black; not like that died black mop of  Tanya’s.  

“One of you has to give in on which country you will live,”  I say.  “You don’t want to lose this woman.  Will you be bringing Sheilah to The States?”

“She hates Americans.  Says they’re cheap tippers and cause big problems in the Pub when they come through Ireland in the tour groups.”

He’s in love with a woman who hates Americans.  How will that work out?  “Will you be living with her in Ireland, then?”

“I’ll never go back to stay.”

“Well how will this be arranged?”

Quinn laughs in sputters.  “It’s all been arranged.  My brothers in Ireland, and myself, we bought the Pub and the land.  Now I own her.  It’s better than a marriage.”

“I don’t get it.  She can just leave and go work at any Pub.”

“That’s right.  Technically.  But she won’t.  It’s Ireland.  Her people have been going to that Pub a hundred or more years. My Pub, now.  She’ll stay put.  When I want to see her I’ll get on the plane and suffer the mask.  Trust me, Mate.”

It all sounds odd but what do I know?

REVIEWS FOR OFFICE

Take a devastating pandemic, add a ragtag group of flailing office workers, a disaffected boss and an ongoing need to party and you’ve got the makings of a wild ride. Office, Susan Isla Tepper’s latest, is both a quirky, delightful novel and a cautionary tale for our times, riffing off the Covid debacle and its surreal fallout. “Hell is other people!” Jean-Paul Sartre stated in his famous 1944 play, No Exit. Indeed.

— Alexis Rhone Fancher, author of EROTIC: New & Selected, Poetry Editor, Cultural Daily

Susan Tepper has taken on the pandemic in her satiric New York novel Office. It’s Samuel Beckett meets the Twilight Zone as the staff of a marketing firm manage a huge space that “…is now an empty monument to commerce.” The women rule as the men bumble their way through the eerily empty city. A great read that mirrors our precarious times.

— Anne Elezabeth Pluto, author of The Deepest Part of Dark, Professor at Lesley University, Cambridge, MA, Editor at Nixes Mate Review and Nixes Mate Books, Boston, MA.

This satire of office culture during the pandemic is a madcap romp into the shoals of office politics, not to mention,madness. Tepper is a writer who is equally at home with humor and drama and this book gives the reader a palette of her talents.”

— Doug Holder, Lecturer in Creative Writing, Endicott College

Tepper hits the ball out of the park with her new book Office, a sharp-witted, off the wall comedy reflecting America and its culture during Covid. Mingling despair and hope, the story juxtaposes self-meaning and individuality against a new world backdrop of changing rules and the ever present mind-numbing medi-fomercials spewing from the office widescreen. Keeping a sense of humor throughout, Tepper’s satiric and quirky voice navigates lockdown without becoming preachy or depressing. Office is the latest enjoyable and poignant book from a masterful storyteller.

— Ron D’Alena, author of The Madness of Being

BOOK TRAILER -

To paraphrase Neil Gaiman, creative writing requires only two things: keep readers turning the page and don’t disappoint them with the ending. With a contemporary Bartleby, the Scrivener feel-albeit not quite so dark-OFFICE succeeds at both. I couldn’t put it down, I had no idea how Susan Isla Tepper was going to wrap up such a short, snappy story, and yet when I came to the end, I realized she had been sign posting all along the way. Can a reader ask for more than an ending (I won’t spoil it by telling you whether it’s happy or sad) that surprises you and yet makes complete sense once you read it? Well done, Ms. Tepper.

— L. Mark Weeks

Susan Tepper has nailed the grim vibe of Covid America in her latest book, OFFICE, with interesting, insightful, sad, funny characters, and I happily did not know how it would end. The cover art suited the story perfectly. But what I loved most was the actual writing: the characters’ inner dialogue calls to mind the sophistication of John Updike’s sparse, edgy voice, and that is not an easy thing to do! I really loved this book.

— Robin Stratton

Susan Tepper’s dialog and ability to infuse great wit and humor shine in this book. If you enjoy top shelf writing from an author who has proven with every outing there is no genre she cannot pull off with absolute grace as is the mark of a truly great writer.  Office is a fantastic look into the world of people just being themselves as they truly are, no sugar coating or holding back. Please do yourself a favor and pick up a copy today. I can promise you will not regret it as the pages are rich with characters we all in some facet can identify with, and read the words of a writer whose craft is bar none.

— John Patrick Robbins

In OFFICE, employees of a marketing firm descend to pathetic if not comical depths when faced with the new Covid world. They still show up at the office but are bored as hell – and without structure and actual work, they stare at the widescreen, set up a “beautification station” and the “tent.” The overly observant narrator becomes obsessed with seemingly everyone around him, not to mention his itchy neck and the true marketing value of ear swabs. A hilarious and hellacious nightmare that in a human behavior way echoed “Lord of the Rings” – that is, what happens to people when life as you know it can’t be fixed by rearranging office furniture.

— Frances Park

Six Questions Interview with
Susan Isla Tepper by John Wisniewski ~

http://www.cervenabarvapress.com/newsletter.htm...

Could you tell us about choosing the setting of OFFICE, in an empty office in New York City?

The pandemic was rolling when I decided to write another book, to quell my fears. My ideas come out of the ether, mainly. But hard truths laid the groundwork for this particular novel. However, I wasn't about to write hard truths. Say you are in the midst of a war, do you hunker down in a bomb shelter and write a war novel? Unlikely. Afterward, maybe, but not during the shelling. We have shelling of a different sort: a puff of air that's killed an awful lot of people. So I write my book OFFICE but turned it into satire. A small group of office workers who were riding it out as best they could in that tall, mostly empty building. NYC was like that during the lockdown. Though some people still braved it into the office. In my little group of characters you have the good, the bad and the ugly. You have competitive behavior. The same way life is always arranged. The book gets pretty zany, because zany made me feel better about everything that was terrifying me.

What does the book say about today's times?

I think it's saying that no matter what's going on with the world, people will retain their same personalities and character traits, and operate along the same lines as they've always done. And that a huge scare like a pandemic doesn't transform a dirty rotten scoundrel into a hero, or a psycho-bitch into a Mother Teresa.

When did you begin writing, Susan? Were you writing at an early age?

Oh, gosh, I started really late. When I gave up my acting life. My mom was a published poet and humor writer, and she encouraged me. My whole life I've been a voracious reader so it wasn't hard to transition from acting to writing. They're both art and deal in words. Just from different perspectives. I do write stage plays, too, and recently had my play THE CROOKED HEART debut at the Irish Rep in NYC on October 25. It was a blast, and I worked closely with a director I really admire, Elmore James.

How do you create such interesting characters in your books?

John, I'm so glad you find them interesting. I think most people are interesting, and I tend to absorb things from people. It's part of my acting training, or maybe I was born inquisitive. At any rate, if you walk around half-asleep to what's going on around you, what can you possibly bring to the page or the stage? Art always co-mingles with life.

What will your next book be about?

My next novel is already written. It's about a young woman who lives down South and busts out of her mundane life.

Any future plans and projects?

I have to get a full run for my play. I'm always writing. I'm sure the books will keep coming out until they put me 6 feet under. Thanks for the great questions, John.