The Temps

Jacob Elliot doesn’t want a temporary job in the mailroom at Delphi Enterprises, but after two post-college years of unpaid internships and living in his parents’ basement, he needs the work. Then, on his first day, the unthinkable happens: toxic gas descends on a meeting in Delphi’s outdoor amphitheater, killing all the regular employees and leaving Jacob stranded inside the vast office complex.

Wandering through Delphi headquarters, Jacob finds other survivors: Lauren, the disillusioned classics major who’s now writing online personality quizzes; Swati, the fitness instructor with derailed college ambitions; and Dominic, the business school student who will do almost anything to get ahead. Stranded in the wreckage of the company that employed them, the temps band together to create a miniature world that’s part spring break, part office culture―until a shocking discovery disrupts the survivors’ self-made paradise and drives them to find the truth about the apocalypse that brought their world to an end.

Wryly funny and briskly plotted, The Temps is a surprising literary take on the experience of being young and underemployed in a world plagued by apocalyptic fears.

PRAISE FOR THE TEMPS & ANDREW DEYOUNG

One of Tor’s “All the Horror Books We’re Excited About in 2022” 

“This boiling-pot of a novel is a vivid experiment in millennial disillusionment...Simultaneously a dark dystopic and a hilarious tale of bureaucratic absurdity, The Temps is bizarre—and unexpectedly fun.” —Booklist (starred review)

“A smart critique of modern life.” —Publishers Weekly

“DeYoung has taken a familiar end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it theme and made it something uniquely his own. Readers won't soon forget it.” —New York Journal of Books

“Andrew DeYoung's The Temps is a comic adventure for our uncertain times, a mashup of Then We Came to the End and World War Z. The result is a surprisingly funny and heartfelt satire of modern employment that should please fans of literary and speculative fiction alike.” –Adam O’Fallon Price, author of The Hotel Neversink

“The Temps is a unique take on both the corporate conspiracy plot and the zombie-apocalypse thriller. It's fast-paced, darkly funny, and full of unexpected turns. It also holds incisive and illuminating social commentary, providing windows of insight amidst the heart-pounding action.” —Elvia Wilk, author of Oval

"The Temps is equal parts dark satire, probing character study, and fast-paced thriller. DeYoung’s mesmerizing writing is by turns wry, muscular, and probing. This is an apocalyptic page-turner that asks profound questions about human nature, about who we are and who we have the potential to become. DeYoung’s vision is both vibrant and prophetic; I couldn’t put this novel down." –Kaethe Schwehn, author of The Rending and the Nest

"Andrew DeYoung is a sage storyteller with the incredibly rare gift of being able to write with both poignancy and wit. The Temps is both terrifying and hilarious--it absolutely deserves a high-paying full-time job with excellent benefits." –John Jodzio, Author of Knockout and If You Lived Here You'd Already Be Home

“Part Great American Office Novel and part apocalyptic thriller,The Temps taps into the search for meaning post-college and combines it with the sharp urgency of the best dystopian fiction. With wry observations about corporate life and careful attention to the delicate intricacies of human relationships, DeYoung reminds us that the only thing worse than a meaningless temp job is a meaningless temp job during the end of the world." –Bryan Bliss, National Book Award Longlisted author of We’ll Fly Away

"What The Temps profoundly illustrates is that the most gripping science fiction doesn't emerge from the unknown, but from what we know all too well and choose to look away from. That we choose to look away at our own peril is what makes The Temps impossible to put down." –Ben Tanzer, author of Orphans, UPSTATE and Lost in Space