This book was inventive and darkly funny -- relatable to anyone who has worked in an office. But also weird and strange and I had no idea what was going on, and yet... strangely enjoyable? I left the book thinking, "What the hell did I just read???" but I enjoyed every moment of it. A quick, fun read.

Several People Are Typing is the most unique novel I've read this year, or for a very long time. I couldn't stop compulsively reading, and it's not just because the whole novel is written in easily digestible instant messages. If you've spent a long period of time working from home during the pandemic, you'll relate and applaud the ingenuity of Kasulke's writing, which feels like a thought experiment on humanity, AI, and of course, our relationships to each other. I laughed out loud reading this, and relating the plot points to my husband as they happened just made me sound absolutely bonkers--I loved it.

Utterly absurd but also pretty funny. Told entirely through the Slack communications of employees of a (what seems like pretty inept) PR firm, where most of the team are finding any excuse to WFH. Things get weird as the ‘slackbot’ becomes a character, and reality and online lives cross paths. Amusing, a little bit throwaway, but a fun one-sitting read.

I really loved Several People are Typing.

A relatively quick read given its unique format—told almost entirely through Slack messages—but laugh-out-loud funny. A wonderful reprieve between long-form novels, and a wildly topical metaphor for many currently living and working in the same physical box, all day every day. Is having your conscious uploaded even much different than this looped existence?

Oh my goodness, I don’t say this lightly - I loved this book! It is gloriously inventive, ceaselessly hilarious, and best of all, hardly feels like you are reading a book. Imagine that the supernatural happens, and you can only communicate it via Slack. Imagine it gets lost in the sludge-like banter of escapist, purposeless coworkers trying to entertain themselves. They are the real housewives of corporate America and you are in the fourth dimension.
Gerald is middle of the pack in an average NYC PR firm. When the company adopts a lax WFH policy, Gerald loses grip on his conscience and accidentally gets downloaded into Slack. There, he has access to all conversations simultaneously, the ability to *become* a meme, and the attention of Slackbot, who only speaks as if the artifact of actual conversation. It turns out that corporate culture’s ideal employee will be dedicated to work without distraction, is available 24/7, and has an omniscient understanding of office dynamics. As soon as Gerald sheds his vestigial body, he exemplifies this employee - at first, his colleagues can’t get over his “bit” about being stuck in Slack (surely a ruse to keep working from home?) but the concern evaporates as it is clear that he is now a phenomenal corporate worker. Unfortunately, rather than facing promotion or pay raise, Gerald is given more work than ever, and concern for his mental health seems to evaporate as the volume and quality of his work increases.
Inside of Slack, Gerald is lonely. He begins to understand that he exists in a heightened level of consciousness. Unbeknownst to him, the once innocuous (albeit annoying) Slackbot has more nefarious intentions for his body. Through plotting his corporeal return, Gerald finds friendship (and perhaps more) amongst the colleagues he thought he already knew.
The fun of the novel are the ubiquitous subplots. The meat of the novel is dispersed - even Slackbot and Gerald devolve into subplots. The novel is also constantly in media res due to the nature of the formatting - it is propulsive and distractingly fun. Reading it honestly feels a bit like performance art. I recommend it as a heartwarming respite from your work, to temporarily enter a gloriously inane parallel work universe.

Several People Are Typing is told completely through a PR firm's Slack messages. This was a quirky, hilarious read that explores workplace dynamics through a unique lens. I really enjoyed the elements of the book that were slightly supernatural - Gerald mysteriously being trapped inside Slack itself, Lydia's howling. Those plotlines added a little spice while being ridiculously self-aware. Overall an enjoyable romp through a very modern workplace.

This book was different from anything I’ve read in a while. This one is told entirely through chats made through a company’s Slack channels (if you’re like me and not familiar with Slack it is a messaging system). But there’s a slight twist: one of the colleagues is actually stuck inside the messaging system and can’t get out. His colleagues think he is just trying to use more work-from-home time, and his bosses and thrilled that his productivity has increased exponentially.

This was wasn’t quite what I was expecting. It is described as a humor book, but I didn’t really think it fit that category. While it didn’t make me laugh, I did think it was a very unique and quick read. I loved that it was told entirely through Slack messages, and seeing the office dynamics was very entertaining. This one was super weird, but I was kind of here for it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday books for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I'm on Slack alllllllll day for my job so "Several People Are Typing" was both relatable and hilarious to me. However, it is a really strange story that will seem unreadable to people who don't use Slack. It will probably be super dated just in a few years. That said, I read it in two days and was entertained throughout. This book won't be for everybody but for those who are metaphorically trapped in Slack all day, it's a good one.

Published by Doubleday on August 31, 2021

If I were to attach a label to Several People Are Typing, I might go with absurdist or experimental. A more apt description might be “really, really funny.”

One of the technology trends that I’ve managed to avoid is called Slack. If I’m getting this right, Slack is a messaging app that businesses use to enable internal communications and conferencing. Slack users apparently have the ability to add emojis to their communications. According to a blog post at Vice, nobody is quite sure what the “dusty stick” emoji means. That ambiguity is milked for its full laugh potential in Several People Are Typing.

The novel consists entirely of chat dialog in Slack message rooms used by the New York office of a public relations firm. Clients rely on the firm for crisis management. When Pomeranians start dying because their dog food has been poisoned, they turn to the firm for positive messaging to restore the faith of dog owners in the deadly product.

Early in the novel, a member of the firm named Gerald is working at home on a spreadsheet that he has made to compare the merits of various winter coats so he can decide which one to purchase. That task somehow transports his consciousness into Slack, where he has rather unproductive conversations with Slackbot, a Clippy-type helper that refers Gerald to the Help Center for answers to his questions about why he is stuck in a program. Gerald can easily communicate with other employees via Slack, but they think he is trying out a “bit” when he complains that he is stuck inside Slack. Gerald’s co-employee Pradeep eventually heeds Gerald’s entreaties, goes to Gerald’s home, and finds Gerald’s drooling body slumped over a keyboard. Pradeep takes this in stride, in part because Gerald pays Pradeep to tend to his body while his mind adjusts to living inside of Slack. Slackbot eventually “wakes up” and decides he would like to live Gerald’s physical life while Gerald is stuck in Slack. Slackbot’s idea of living is largely limited to eating and sex, although he enjoys sunsets, at least when they appear in a gif.

Much of the story’s humor comes from random office absurdities. A new employee arrives in the office on a snowy day, finding only one other employee who made it to work. They promptly have sex on the boss’ standing desk, to the detriment of the desk. They discuss their dalliance on Slack, secure in the knowledge that the boss never exercises his authority to read private communications on Slack. A “wrong send” nevertheless clues the rest of the office into the romance. Before that happens, the male in the relationship seeks advice in private rooms about Valentine’s Day — specifically, how to avoid celebrating it with his new casual lover without seeming like a dick for avoiding it, a problem I instinctively understood.

An employee named Lydia has a growing concern about the howling she always hears, as if wolves are at her door. Another employee develops a concern when Lydia disappears and nobody else in the office remembers that Lydia ever worked there. Such is life in the modern office environment.

The novel satirizes office relationships, professional and personal, as well as working (or not working) from home, a mode that is popular with the firm’s employees, who never seem to do much work even if they’re in the office. It satirizes managers who ignore questions (like, “when are you going to send me the information I need to finish this project?”) and employees who gossip (i.e., all employees). Of course, it satirizes dusty stick and the culture of using emojis as ambiguous shorthand, including the tendency to “thumbs up” any remark when no better response comes to mind.

Perhaps the novel merits an analysis of the serious observations it makes through satire, but I was too busy giggling or guffawing to consider anything beyond its humor. Every page of Several People Are Typing made me laugh. Many pages made me laugh more than once. Considering how gloomy the world can be, I give high marks to books that are as clever, smart, and funny as this one. For readers who appreciate wackiness, Several People Are Typing might be the year’s must read.

RECOMMENDED

Simply stated, this is a book you can easily read in one-sitting, especially if you’ve ever worked in an office environment. Using Slack to digitally collaborate and communicate, Several People are Typing is a humorous work tale of preposterous proportions. We are introduced to Gerald, an employee at a PR agency that has a little tech trouble with the Slack app and reaches out to his colleagues, and Slackbot for support. Told through a series of online conversations and emojis (like the Slack dusty stick) this story is all too familiar for those who have are well-versed in Work From Home/digital office culture. This book doesn’t aim to be literary in a conventional way and is the opposite of pretentious. Instead, Kasulke introduces us to likable characters we can connect with, budding romances to root for, Pomeranians to save, and techy glitches that are eerily too familiar. This was a super fun read—thank you for giving me the opportunity to read this e-ARC!

Existing in the slipstream of humanity’s and technology’s mutual march forward, Kasulke's novel is a welcome if lightweight oddity that cuttingly observes the horror and humor of the modern condition. Genuinely hilarious if not deeply substantive in its world-building, it's definitely a trifle but a fairly delicious one.

When Gerald tells his bosses at the public relations firm he works for that his consciousness has been uploaded into Slack, they all assume he’s doing a bit to keep working from home for a while. But it’s not a bit. It’s Gerald’s new reality, and when he talks to the Slackbot to try to get some help, it just makes unhelpful suggestions for searches in the Help Center.

Meanwhile, back in the office, Tripp is the only one in the office on the snow day when the new employee starts, so it falls on him to take care of Beverley’s onboarding. And one of their most important clients is having a PR nightmare—someone has broken into the Bjark Dog Food factory and poisoned the dog food. Several Pomeranians have already died, and it falls to Rob to come up with dozens, maybe even hundreds of tweets, to reassure customers that their products are safe.

Bosses Doug and Kerolyn try to keep everyone on their tasks, despite Tripp auctioning off the rights to Gerald’s desk (it’s right by the windows), Lydia’s complaints about the howling that seems to follow her everywhere, and the #gents-only conversations about how long you have to date someone to make a big deal out of Valentine’s Day.

Meanwhile, Gerald, stuck in Slack, talks to the Slackbot about the painful beauty of sunsets, and Pradeep drops by Gerald’s apartment to check on him. When Pradeep finds Gerald in a sort of coma at his computer, he finally believes that the whole “disappeared into Slack” thing isn’t a bit. He gives Gerald some food and water and cleans him up a little, not knowing what else to do with him.

As time goes on, Pradeep continues to care for Gerald’s body. Rob dives deep into the dog food copy, trying to save the Pomeranians (and the client), Doug tries to figure out how his standing desk got damaged, and Tripp and Beverley contemplate how an office is like a cult, with its Important Mission, secret language, and rituals.

And Gerald grows a beard and argues with Slackbot about what it means to be human, all while his productivity at work has been top level. But the more time he spends stuck in Slack, the more worried he is about making it back to his body. Will Gerald figure out how to get back to his life, just as he’s coming to understand how important it is to stay human in this tech-obsessed world?

Several People Are Typing is a wild ride of a novel. Author Calvin Kasulke has taken the idea of remote working to the absurd with this wildly funny, surprisingly touching novel about how our devices take us over from time to time. Told entirely in Slack channel conversations, these chats tell the stories of our lives, from the insecurities to the anxieties, from the friendships to the romances, from the humor to the heart.

I was a little skeptical about the premise for this book. I don’t have a problem with the absurd, but there was something about this that left me wondering what I was getting into with the book. However, I got sucked in too, and I loved every moment of it. I so enjoyed spending time with these characters, as soon as I finished the book, I wanted to start reading it again. It’s a quick read because of the Slack format, but it’s best to take your time with this and really enjoy every minute.

Egalleys for Several People Are Typing were provided by Doubleday Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.

This quirky book was so much fun to read. Told entirely in Slack messages, the author really nailed working in a corporate environment, and I speak from experience.

Gerald is a mid-level employee working at A NYC PR firm. They have a very lax work from home policy. However, one day Gerald swaps consciousness with Slackbot. He is comatose, but highly productive in the Slack platform, so everyone thinks this is a joke, and does not think anything of it.

We meet all the other co-workers with all their private conversations, and group conversations. Lot’s of inside jokes, which you would expect any work group would have. They are all working on a campaign for a dog food company that has issues with poisoning dogs.

There are fights over workspaces, sexual acts that cause broken furniture. They also want to know why Gerald always gets to work from home. Eventually Pradeep saves the day in more ways than one.

This book can rival Office Space. I loved it so much. Yes, it is totally over the top, but the author just captured it so well what is like to work today when collaboration tools that are forced upon all of us.

Thank you NetGalley and Doubleday for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I’m not sure how to rate this book. It’s so different from anything I’ve read before; I tried to explain it to someone and sounded absolutely insane.
In the end it was very funny, unique, and had moments of sweetness among the sheer wtf-ery.

This book is perfect for anyone who feels like they've spent their work life inside zoom, Teams, or Slack--or for anyone who needs a laugh. Told entirely through messages sent via Slack, this humorous book tells the story of Gerald, an employee of a social media company, who is actually subsumed by the Slack helpbot, while his body is taken over by the bot.

Meanwhile, two of his colleagues embark on a hot & heavy affair while everyone is dealing with a campaign to salvage the reputation of a dog food company accused of poisoning dogs. Fast-paced and hilarious, this book is relatable on so many levels. #SeveralPeopleAreTyping #NetGalley

Happy day before pub day to Several People are Typing! Thank you to Doubleday for my gifted ARC!

In one sentence: One company’s Slack messages cover an ad campaign for a dog food company, an office affair, and worst of all, an employee getting stuck inside Slack.

I spend a lot of time on Slack, so I knew I had to read this book. I loved the satirical look at modern work culture - the social commentary was spot on. I also enjoyed the “stuck in Slack” storyline - I had no idea how it would turn out.

The only issue I had with the book is the sheer number of conversations and storylines - it was hard to keep everything straight in my head since the book is told entirely in Slack messages without other narration. This is also a problem with Slack in real life. 🤣

If you love Slack or love to hate it, you might enjoy this book! I think it would be a fun gift for an office gift exchange.

This is a quirky, humorous story written in chat form as if employees of a fictional company are chatting in Slack. As someone who works in HR it made me realize how happy I am my company doesn’t use Slack and I have never had to read through employee chats, but as a reader it was a fast and entertaining read when you’re looking for something lighthearted and different.

Several People Are Typing is a quick, witty book entirely in Slack chat format about an NYC-based public relations firm. One employee, Gerald, accidentally has his consciousness uploaded into Slack, but everyone thinks he’s working from home and making a joke. Other employees are dealing with things like not getting blamed for their boss’s broken desk (although it was definitely their fault) and some dog food-gone-wrong for customer Bjärk Dog Food, which has been recently been killing Pomeranians. This was a very unique book both in in content and style and it was enjoyable!

Thanks to Doubleday Books for the copy of this ARC!

Unfortunately this book was not for me, the format made the story hard to keep up with. It would have been more enjoyable if it had more paragraphs with some of the slack messages inbetween.

:dusty-stick:

How long would you have to be out of the office before someone rents out your deskspace to coworkers (it faces south and it is winter)? Not very long it seems.

A wild, funny, and very quick book giving us a snapshot of current worklife, office culture and an Evil Clippy. Book is written in Slack messages, but you don't need to be familiar with Slack or Teams to understand.

I received an ARC of this and really wanted the published ebook to include the emojis and gifs. One of the most interesting things about this book is that it spurred many thoughts about how writing a book specifically for ebook publication could include more than the printed word and expand the expectations for books.