I second that, Rowan and Farmer John—to me the heart of the novel was the voice, and the re-creation on the page of office life. But I suppose without the drama, the book would have amounted to (as someone above mentioned) a pretty funny blog.

The chapter timelines were an homage to to Blood Meridian (Tom Mota is the judge).

I'd agree that the two sections were hard to reconcile—I didn't see them as either thematic parallels or as sharp contrasts. I can see why he wanted to tell Lynn's story—it's quite moving—but I still need to be convinced that her story fits with the goals of the whole novel.

I'd agree with your last point—I didn't see much thematic parallel (or sharp contrast) between the Lynn/cancer storyline and the rest of the book. As I recall, Tom Mota's little existential saga was about the closest thing. Speaking of feeling "cheated," which seems to be a common theme among commenters, I found…

Do I remember right that the Lynn segment is actually a chapter of Hank's novel—the one that he reads to the group in the epilogue? If that's the case, it's a pretty ingenious move by Ferris to give us access to that information without breaking the rules of the PoV.

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I read this about 3 weeks ago, enjoyed it quite a bit. I was totally won over by the time we heard the conversation about the "buckshelves."