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I'm Working on a Building
Everything becomes clearer in reverse – because sometimes, things have to be taken apart to be understood.
In the near future, an exact replica of the world's tallest tower, Dubai's Burj al Khalifa, is being built on New Zealand's West Coast. It's an exercise in economic stimulation and national confidence-building after a run of natural and financial disasters. Catherine is the engineer in charge of making sure it all works. She feels there is something wrong in the plans. Or is there something wrong in her?
"I’m working on a building" follows Catherine from the top of the tower to a geodesic dome in a park in London; from the Grand Lisboa in Macau to student accommodation in Wellington; from a South Auckland theme park to the Pompidou Centre; to reveal the way chance events can undo the best efforts of human beings to plan and build their lives and worlds.
PIP ADAM gained an MA in Creative Writing with Distinction from Victoria University in 2007, and a PhD in 2012. Her work has appeared in Sport, Glottis, Turbine, Landfall, Lumière Reader, Hue & Cry, Metro and Blackmail Press, and she received an Arts Foundation of New Zealand New Generation Award in 2012. Her collection of short stories won the NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction in the 2011 NZ Post Book Awards.
In the near future, an exact replica of the world's tallest tower, Dubai's Burj al Khalifa, is being built on New Zealand's West Coast. It's an exercise in economic stimulation and national confidence-building after a run of natural and financial disasters. Catherine is the engineer in charge of making sure it all works. She feels there is something wrong in the plans. Or is there something wrong in her?
"I’m working on a building" follows Catherine from the top of the tower to a geodesic dome in a park in London; from the Grand Lisboa in Macau to student accommodation in Wellington; from a South Auckland theme park to the Pompidou Centre; to reveal the way chance events can undo the best efforts of human beings to plan and build their lives and worlds.
PIP ADAM gained an MA in Creative Writing with Distinction from Victoria University in 2007, and a PhD in 2012. Her work has appeared in Sport, Glottis, Turbine, Landfall, Lumière Reader, Hue & Cry, Metro and Blackmail Press, and she received an Arts Foundation of New Zealand New Generation Award in 2012. Her collection of short stories won the NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction in the 2011 NZ Post Book Awards.
- GenresFiction
First published January 1, 2013
102 people want to read
About the author
Pip Adam
10 books89 followersPIP ADAM gained an MA in Creative Writing with Distinction from Victoria University in 2007. Her work has appeared in Sport, Glottis, Turbine, Lumiere Reader, Hue & Cry, Landfall and Blackmail Press. Her work has also appeared in publications produced in conjunction with two exhibitions at the Wellington City Art Gallery and her reviews have appeared in Metro. She is currently working toward her PhD Creative Writing at Victoria University. Her PhD project explores how engineers describe the built environment. She is using this research to write stories about our relationships with built forms and the structures that hold them up.
Everything We Hoped For won the NZ Post Best First Book Award in 2011 and is an unusually strong first book, distinguished by an exquisitely crafted surface and barely contained emotional force.
Her writing has been described as:
‘a kind of post-post modern fiction - nothing meta, no irony, no narrative arc, no insights or character transformations - the stories are flatline and searing and real’
- Helen Lehndorf PALMERSTON NORTH LIBRARY.
‘Adam knows how to brew a story to its essence and to infuse an emotional undercurrent that is deeply affecting’
- Paula Green CANVAS, NZ HERALD
Everything We Hoped For won the NZ Post Best First Book Award in 2011 and is an unusually strong first book, distinguished by an exquisitely crafted surface and barely contained emotional force.
Her writing has been described as:
‘a kind of post-post modern fiction - nothing meta, no irony, no narrative arc, no insights or character transformations - the stories are flatline and searing and real’
- Helen Lehndorf PALMERSTON NORTH LIBRARY.
‘Adam knows how to brew a story to its essence and to infuse an emotional undercurrent that is deeply affecting’
- Paula Green CANVAS, NZ HERALD
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
December 18, 2013
Complicated, clever, challenging, this is a novel that makes you work hard as a reader, but in a good way. 'I'm Working On a Building' is refreshingly different; it seems to break all the rules, yet ultimately comes together as a satisfying story. All the boring bits are left out; the reader is given snapshots of the main character's life, at various times and from various points of view, and has to piece it all together. Catherine, the engineer protagonist, is a fascinating character - intelligent, innocent, tough, vulnerable, unrestrained. Trying to figure out Catherine is part of the fun of reading the story.
January 12, 2014
I'm really impressed by this and I enjoyed it.
The vocab is a delight - engineering terms which have multiple common useage meanings which give the reader new insights as the story progresses plus metaphors which work hard - both for the place or object being described and for the character's perception of it. Really clever. The cumulative effect is hypnotic. And thought-provoking.
The vocab is a delight - engineering terms which have multiple common useage meanings which give the reader new insights as the story progresses plus metaphors which work hard - both for the place or object being described and for the character's perception of it. Really clever. The cumulative effect is hypnotic. And thought-provoking.
May 30, 2021
Unusual book. Challenging but amazing -goes backwards so you understand more as you go about what is going on but you are still left with some questions at the end - should probably read again although I just want to start her short stories now. Lots of engineering stuff that you don’t need to understand but look through to understand (or not!) the characters. Brilliant.
December 28, 2024
Pip Adam's books are so different. Loved all the references to Wellington buildings especially Victoria University of Wellington. Note to anyone wanting to read it - each chapter goes sequentially back in time. That tripped me up for a bit.
January 31, 2024
I thought this book was clever at the start, then terrifying in the middle, then clever at the end again.
September 13, 2013
I occassionally do book reviews for Booksellers NZ, and consequently they will, now and then, offer me books. I decided early on that I would never say "no" and I would always review said book within a few days of receiving it.
This is not the sort of book I would normally pick up - the storyline sounds quite interesting, but it lacks the fantastical element that I generally favour. However, it has proved to be an interesting reading experience and it is always pleasing to step out of my comfort zone and read something a wee bit different.
When I first received it, I thought it was a misbound copy - for not only does the cover appear to be upside down (as you can see in the thumbnail above), but the back cover is also upside down, which means when I walk and read I look not only like the crazy person that is walking and reading, but also like the crazy person who is walking and reading with her book up the wrong way. After seeing the thumbnail I realised my mistake, and also that it is somewhat meta - a clever indication of the narrative, which also works from a point in the not-too-distant future backwards through the lives of the characters.
The writing style is somewhat dry, and a little too much tell, not show, for my tastes. The main character is Catherine, an engineer who does not relate well to others, and as her story works backwards you can sort of get an inkling as to why this might be. She is engineering a building in the Southern Alps of New Zealand - the building of a full scale replica Burj al Khalifa, currently the tallest tower in the world. She is feeling distinctly uncomfortable about the whole process - as would anyone building a tall tower atop a fault line.
This event follows on from a dramatic earthquake that destroyed most of Wellington, including killing several of Catherine's friends and almost claiming her. This novel was written in 2010, but whether or not Pip Adam had direct experience of the Christchurch earthquake is unspecified - regardless, she writes the narrative very convincingly, including the sort of distancing oneself/dissociation from reality that one experiences when they undergo such a dramatic disaster. This was probably my faovurite part of the story and I read the passages several times to get the flavour for it.
We go back further, through various fractured relationships. Sometiems the narrative skips into first person, with the narrator being Isabel, who appears to be Catherine's sister. Her purpose in the storyline is not entirely clear, except perhaps as an outside observer of Catherine's life. We also have chapters from the point of view of minor cast - such as Donna and some of their male associates, all which either enhance the plot or muddle it rather, depending on how deeply you read the story.
All in all, I feel this novel was trying to be a little too clever for me, and possibly requires deeper and more indepth reading and concentration than I was able to give it (in my defense, I have rather a lot going on at the moment). At some points it left me confused and befuddled, at others Pip Adam's poetically worded internal musings of the characters had me marveling. Her challenge was to use the language of structural engineering to enhance the narrative, and for someone who is not an engineer (either me or she), I would say she did a very convcing job and has clearly done her research.
This reading copy came courtesy of Victoria University Press, via Booksellers NZ.
This is not the sort of book I would normally pick up - the storyline sounds quite interesting, but it lacks the fantastical element that I generally favour. However, it has proved to be an interesting reading experience and it is always pleasing to step out of my comfort zone and read something a wee bit different.
When I first received it, I thought it was a misbound copy - for not only does the cover appear to be upside down (as you can see in the thumbnail above), but the back cover is also upside down, which means when I walk and read I look not only like the crazy person that is walking and reading, but also like the crazy person who is walking and reading with her book up the wrong way. After seeing the thumbnail I realised my mistake, and also that it is somewhat meta - a clever indication of the narrative, which also works from a point in the not-too-distant future backwards through the lives of the characters.
The writing style is somewhat dry, and a little too much tell, not show, for my tastes. The main character is Catherine, an engineer who does not relate well to others, and as her story works backwards you can sort of get an inkling as to why this might be. She is engineering a building in the Southern Alps of New Zealand - the building of a full scale replica Burj al Khalifa, currently the tallest tower in the world. She is feeling distinctly uncomfortable about the whole process - as would anyone building a tall tower atop a fault line.
This event follows on from a dramatic earthquake that destroyed most of Wellington, including killing several of Catherine's friends and almost claiming her. This novel was written in 2010, but whether or not Pip Adam had direct experience of the Christchurch earthquake is unspecified - regardless, she writes the narrative very convincingly, including the sort of distancing oneself/dissociation from reality that one experiences when they undergo such a dramatic disaster. This was probably my faovurite part of the story and I read the passages several times to get the flavour for it.
We go back further, through various fractured relationships. Sometiems the narrative skips into first person, with the narrator being Isabel, who appears to be Catherine's sister. Her purpose in the storyline is not entirely clear, except perhaps as an outside observer of Catherine's life. We also have chapters from the point of view of minor cast - such as Donna and some of their male associates, all which either enhance the plot or muddle it rather, depending on how deeply you read the story.
All in all, I feel this novel was trying to be a little too clever for me, and possibly requires deeper and more indepth reading and concentration than I was able to give it (in my defense, I have rather a lot going on at the moment). At some points it left me confused and befuddled, at others Pip Adam's poetically worded internal musings of the characters had me marveling. Her challenge was to use the language of structural engineering to enhance the narrative, and for someone who is not an engineer (either me or she), I would say she did a very convcing job and has clearly done her research.
This reading copy came courtesy of Victoria University Press, via Booksellers NZ.
August 23, 2015
there are some lovely moments but they're few and far between. not a fan of the style of prose. that style includes this style i'm using now. a style reliant on repetition. and a style that is one (short) step from the characters calling each other 'sis' and 'bro' so we can see that they're related.
** this is a book club book which is good because it is possible i'll get more out of this once i discuss it with someone. maybe.
** this is a book club book which is good because it is possible i'll get more out of this once i discuss it with someone. maybe.
August 15, 2024
This book is quite hard to find, so luckily I found it in a book sale in Rotorua. It's now being reprinted.
The book is told in reverse and goes through the life of Catherine, a grunpy engineer working on a southern Burj Khalifa. As the book unravels, you can see how she became the person she was in the first chapter.
At times it can be confusing (unless it wasn't - I was a bit tired when I was reading the second half), it was a compelling read. There are multiple characters and I sometimes forgot who was who, also some of them get introduced but of course it's in reverse, so you have to read on to know who they are. So, on a second read I think things will be easier.
The later parts have a similar feel (gritty) to her prior book (a story collection). I was ambivalent on that book, but love all her novels after this. I change my mind on my favourite but at the moment I reckon it's The New Animals. I also liked her story that is very closely related to that novel, which was published in Sport and is uncollected and I forgot the name of.
The best part in my opinion is the London chapter about silt. That was breathtaking.
The book was written not long after the Christchurch earthquakes, and I got a bit confused with there being quakes in Wellington, but those were fictional (although there was a moderate event?). Nonetheless, it's a great book to read to understand how people felt, if you are interested in that part of recent New Zealand history.
The title I think is a reference to a song, which has these lyrics:
"If I was a sinner, I tell you what I would do,
I'd quit my sinnin' and I'd work on the buildin' too
I'm workin' on a building'
I'm workin' on a building'"
Quite relevant.
The book is told in reverse and goes through the life of Catherine, a grunpy engineer working on a southern Burj Khalifa. As the book unravels, you can see how she became the person she was in the first chapter.
At times it can be confusing (unless it wasn't - I was a bit tired when I was reading the second half), it was a compelling read. There are multiple characters and I sometimes forgot who was who, also some of them get introduced but of course it's in reverse, so you have to read on to know who they are. So, on a second read I think things will be easier.
The later parts have a similar feel (gritty) to her prior book (a story collection). I was ambivalent on that book, but love all her novels after this. I change my mind on my favourite but at the moment I reckon it's The New Animals. I also liked her story that is very closely related to that novel, which was published in Sport and is uncollected and I forgot the name of.
The best part in my opinion is the London chapter about silt. That was breathtaking.
The book was written not long after the Christchurch earthquakes, and I got a bit confused with there being quakes in Wellington, but those were fictional (although there was a moderate event?). Nonetheless, it's a great book to read to understand how people felt, if you are interested in that part of recent New Zealand history.
The title I think is a reference to a song, which has these lyrics:
"If I was a sinner, I tell you what I would do,
I'd quit my sinnin' and I'd work on the buildin' too
I'm workin' on a building'
I'm workin' on a building'"
Quite relevant.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 26, 2025
I will need to make time to read this book again and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it more the second time around.
The books written in reverse chronological order. And at first I found it a hard read. And usually I don’t want a hard read…iv’e had a hard day, and at 9pm I want to get lost in a book. You won’t get lost in this book until well after halfway. Thankfully halfway is only 100 and a few pages. Otherwise I’d have given up.
But it gets easier and more interesting from there. The engineering jargon is interminably dull, and actually lends nothing to the book other than to demonstrate that Pip Adams did some research.
I wanted something different I have to say, maybe less of an in depth character study and more of a farce surrounding the building of a replica of the Burj Kalifa on the west coast of NZ, because that premise sounds humorous, and instead the book takes itself a bit too seriously.
The books written in reverse chronological order. And at first I found it a hard read. And usually I don’t want a hard read…iv’e had a hard day, and at 9pm I want to get lost in a book. You won’t get lost in this book until well after halfway. Thankfully halfway is only 100 and a few pages. Otherwise I’d have given up.
But it gets easier and more interesting from there. The engineering jargon is interminably dull, and actually lends nothing to the book other than to demonstrate that Pip Adams did some research.
I wanted something different I have to say, maybe less of an in depth character study and more of a farce surrounding the building of a replica of the Burj Kalifa on the west coast of NZ, because that premise sounds humorous, and instead the book takes itself a bit too seriously.
March 1, 2023
My favourite thing about Pip Adam's writing is how uncomfortable it makes me. As unpleasant as her characters often are, I always feel a sense of empathy for the natural and manufactured world, and for the foibles of the people bouncing around it -- but it's a challenging empathy, demanding that the reader think more deeply about their contribution to what ails the planet and our society, as well as how vulnerable they are to more powerful forces. Literally and figuratively, here. The novel unfolds in reverse chronological order and is increasingly tense for it as you see how Catherine became such a cold cynic, and the people she hurt along the way, while emphasising the sharpness of her mind and her eye. What if, what if, what if? Once again, this most interesting of writers reminds me of what fiction and the novel can be.
August 26, 2025
Pip's stuff always just rinses out my brain. I really admire the way her stories sometimes depart on these dreamlike wanderings, and the narrative breaks apart so that whatever idea is being worked out can just develop according to its own tendencies without being beholden to conventional sense. The reverse chronology was a bit hard to follow sometimes - I guess because by definition, things fade into the story without any sense of their later (earlier) importance. But despite my slowness, I got this and I think I understand what Pip was saying. People make themselves very unhappy.
March 25, 2020
Picked up speed as it went along. Probably rewards a second read?
January 1, 2021
The story goes backwards in time, with a lot of nice touches about earthquakes (mandatory for a NZ write) and architects/engineers.
July 22, 2025
I struggled with the challenge of placing the time periods to piece this together, and really couldn't care enough.
July 21, 2014
The most striking thing about this book is definitely its cover... and the way it reflects the back to front nature of the novel.
The cover kept tangling me every time I picked the book up - I was always opening it upsidedown or back to front. The point I suppose.
As you read the first few chapters you quickly realise it's not going chronologically forward but it does take a while to realise that you are going chronologically backward and that the book will never return to the first story to tie up the loose ends. It is concentrating more on the building materials that contributed to that moment in time rather than considering what it meant or where it is going next.
Which reflects the comment of the author when she said that rather than write a book focussed on buildings where they represent the characters - she wanted to write a book where the characters represented buildings.
And then, to do that, she turned the whole novel on its head. Literally. Both the chapter sequence and the cover jacket itself.
Which worked brilliantly.
With one issue - it was all very well considering Catherine in all the different materials of her past life and look at them through multiple viewpoints to better understand the situation we find her in at the beginning... But I still wanted to know what it meant and where she was going next. I was looking for the closure I suppose - although perhaps that is just the conventionality of my expectations of what a novel does and not needed to complete the story at all...
Very clever.
The cover kept tangling me every time I picked the book up - I was always opening it upsidedown or back to front. The point I suppose.
As you read the first few chapters you quickly realise it's not going chronologically forward but it does take a while to realise that you are going chronologically backward and that the book will never return to the first story to tie up the loose ends. It is concentrating more on the building materials that contributed to that moment in time rather than considering what it meant or where it is going next.
Which reflects the comment of the author when she said that rather than write a book focussed on buildings where they represent the characters - she wanted to write a book where the characters represented buildings.
And then, to do that, she turned the whole novel on its head. Literally. Both the chapter sequence and the cover jacket itself.
Which worked brilliantly.
With one issue - it was all very well considering Catherine in all the different materials of her past life and look at them through multiple viewpoints to better understand the situation we find her in at the beginning... But I still wanted to know what it meant and where she was going next. I was looking for the closure I suppose - although perhaps that is just the conventionality of my expectations of what a novel does and not needed to complete the story at all...
Very clever.
August 13, 2016
What a brilliant book, I love it and I wasn't sure I would from the descriptions of it (ie centering around civil engineering). I really enjoyed the reverse chronological order of it, as each chapter took me back in time in Catherine's life it felt like a mystery was being revealed.
These lines in chapter 8 made my heart pause "All the sounds of the normal things were gone. All she could hear was the deepest noise of the Pacific plate locked against the Australian plate, trying to push under it, and finally, suddenly, rupturing". I'm not sure if I had such a strong reaction to this from having experienced a devastating earthquake but it captures perfectly the moment when you realise it's happening but can't quite believe it is happening and don't understand how you could have been going about your life so innocently without realising this was coming...
My rating is 4 and a half stars...
Read it!
These lines in chapter 8 made my heart pause "All the sounds of the normal things were gone. All she could hear was the deepest noise of the Pacific plate locked against the Australian plate, trying to push under it, and finally, suddenly, rupturing". I'm not sure if I had such a strong reaction to this from having experienced a devastating earthquake but it captures perfectly the moment when you realise it's happening but can't quite believe it is happening and don't understand how you could have been going about your life so innocently without realising this was coming...
My rating is 4 and a half stars...
Read it!
October 18, 2016
Adam says in the author's note, 'This book began as the creative component of a PhD which asked: in what ways can the language of structural engineering inform, alter and enlarge fiction?' Great concept and brilliantly executed. The novel unfolds in short chapters of reverse chronology, imagining a New Zealand that has suffered a financial crisis and as an economic stimulus plan is building a replica of the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building. One of the engineers on the project is Catherine and we follow her life backwards, often from the point of view of other characters who are friends or family, not always focusing on Catherine herself. Pip Adam is a major talent. You should check her out.
December 19, 2014
This was a fantastic little read. It is written backwards, which is both confusing and delightful. Reading this book I felt like I was counselling it, looking for signs of its broken childhood, knowing that in the next-previous chapter some dark secret would be revealed. I was not disappointed.
Do not let the order of the chapters detract from Pip Adam's somewhat prophetic voice. My highlight was her chapter about a city recovering from an earthquake. I also really liked and understood the North Korean chapter.
It is a great book for people who like to think and read.
Do not let the order of the chapters detract from Pip Adam's somewhat prophetic voice. My highlight was her chapter about a city recovering from an earthquake. I also really liked and understood the North Korean chapter.
It is a great book for people who like to think and read.
November 23, 2013
I really really wanted to like this book. But it was just a bit too clever for me. I'm sure an English class would have a field day dissecting and dismantling it for discussion purposes; there are lots of very clever literary tricks in it. But ultimately, too many tricks to make it the engaging story that I wanted it to be.
June 20, 2014
I took a while to decide what to rate this short book. I read it twice to understand what it was about. A very complex, facinating story and it takes a while to get used to events going backwards in time. Overall I enjoyed it for its difference.
July 20, 2014
Not a very long book but quite complicated to follow. I almost had to read it again from the finish to start to make sure I had followed it properly! Still very enjoyable, enough that I had to google the buildings I didn't know.
October 18, 2013
This is my favourite NZ book of 2013.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews