Beyond the town, there is the factory. Beyond the factory, there is nothing.
Within the sprawling industrial complex, three employees are assigned to different departments. There, each must focus on a specific task: one shreds paper, one proofreads documents, and another studies the moss growing all over the expansive grounds. As they grow accustomed to the routine and co-workers, their lives become governed by their work. Days take on a strange logic and momentum, and little by little, the margins of reality seem to be dissolving: Where does the factory end and the rest of the world begin? What’s going on with the strange animals here? And after a while – it could be weeks or years – the three workers struggle to answer the most basic question: what am I doing here?
With hints of Kafka and Beckett and unexpected moments of creeping humour, The Factory is a vivid, and sometimes surreal, portrait of the absurdity and meaninglessness of the modern workplace.
Paperback.