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The Expansion Project
Plans for the expansion of the Capmeadow Business Park are in full swing - its mission is to become the greatest business park in the region. Tom Crowley, a mid-level employee, loses his daughter at 'bring your daughter to work day'. He raises the alarm, and his colleagues rush to help him find her. Eventually, after no sign of her is found, it transpires she was never there. And yet, as time goes on, Tom still cannot reconcile that she is really at home. Refusing to accept that she is safe, Tom continues to search for her in the maze of corridors and impossible multi-dimensional spaces that make up his place of work...
Because Capmeadow is expanding in unexpected ways, a Liaison Officer becomes the central focus for complaints about how the expansion is impacting the lives of the employees - unexpected buildings, years-long business days, cursed farmers' markets, and corridors of the mind are draining the life from Tom and everyone he works with.
Years pass, and Tom remains at the company, convinced he is in the presence of his now adult daughter. But has he judged it correctly? And can anything go back to the way it was??
Because Capmeadow is expanding in unexpected ways, a Liaison Officer becomes the central focus for complaints about how the expansion is impacting the lives of the employees - unexpected buildings, years-long business days, cursed farmers' markets, and corridors of the mind are draining the life from Tom and everyone he works with.
Years pass, and Tom remains at the company, convinced he is in the presence of his now adult daughter. But has he judged it correctly? And can anything go back to the way it was??
223 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 14, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
November 22, 2025
Shortlisted for the 2025 Goldsmiths Prize
Shortlisted for the 2025 Nero Book Award - Debut Fiction
The new Capmeadow learns what you want for lunch, that's what we were saying. No - not what you want - what you will want. I had that argument with him too. The more I think about him, the more I feel like he was the one who started all this. I know you won't accept that anything is happening, but of course it is, and of course it can't be all his fault, but I blame him. I'd like to kill him. I'd like to kill him.
[A voice: OK. Is there another way you can say how you feel, do you think? With new words, perhaps. We can't continue here if you're talking about killing people. I'll have to stop the meeting. Can you try?]
I'll try. OK. I'll try.
Ben Pester's Am I in the Right Place? longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize was a collection of 11 wonderfully off-kilter short stories (typically c20 pages). Several centre around office life, but with elements of the bizarre and magical mixed in with the mundane - my review. His stories have also featured in Granta, The London Magazine, TANK, Hotel, Five Dials, in addition to at least two anthologies I've read, Best British Short Stories 2022 from Salt Publishing and Duets from Scratch Books.
The Expansion Project applies a similarly offbeat approach and office setting but at novel length.
It begins:
Tom Crowley faces challenges with scheduling
The morning of Bring Your Daughter to Work Day began for me in silence. The hall sagged with the outlines of our coats, the family coats on the family coat rack, blocking the light from the front door.
And the opening is relatively conventional - Crowley takes his 8yo daughter to the office, rather than to school, although from waking her comments that "the whole day was at the wrong angle somehow" and his exasparation with his daughter, Hen, for relatively mundane things betrays his inner anxiety:
With Hen, there had been no such problems with other kids. She seemed invincible. There was nobody who didn't know her, nobody who had a pet she didn't know the name of. I was jealous of her recall for names and faces, her enthusiasm for other people's lives. She seemed able to devour them like books. And yet, I could never shake the feeling that some of my awkwardness had been passed on to her. Some of this incapacity I have, like anger, and failure, always there beneath the surface. Does everyone have that? When I looked at her I'd worry that they don't, and that I'm not normal, and I have passed on this abnormality to her.
On eventual arrival at the office no one else seems to know it is Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, not even his colleague Alex, with a 6 or 7yo daughter, who joins in all such activities: he would be certain to bring her, I felt sure. If there's an extra-work activity, Alex Wood is there, up to his elbows in banter, dressed as a Christmas elf, ready to win the charity egg-and-spoon race.
But things take an odder turn when Hen disappears, and, then even more oddly, although Tom remains convinced she is lost in the office somewhere, she turns out to have gone to school all along, CCTV footage from the station and the office showing Tom travelled and arrived alone.
From then on the novel takes a more surreal turn. What we are reading turns out to be the records of an archivist, documenting the history of the Capmeadow Expansion Project, including interview by a Liaison Officer with some of those involved. And what starts out as more of an conventional takeover by a conglomorate turns into something rather more, the business park literally expanding in a living organic form into the surrounding area, with buildings formed organically, and with employees whose home and work lives become literally blurred, and with timelines shifting.
A novel that needs to be read rather than summarised - one I'd love to see on the Goldsmiths Prize.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
Shortlisted for the 2025 Nero Book Award - Debut Fiction
The new Capmeadow learns what you want for lunch, that's what we were saying. No - not what you want - what you will want. I had that argument with him too. The more I think about him, the more I feel like he was the one who started all this. I know you won't accept that anything is happening, but of course it is, and of course it can't be all his fault, but I blame him. I'd like to kill him. I'd like to kill him.
[A voice: OK. Is there another way you can say how you feel, do you think? With new words, perhaps. We can't continue here if you're talking about killing people. I'll have to stop the meeting. Can you try?]
I'll try. OK. I'll try.
Ben Pester's Am I in the Right Place? longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize was a collection of 11 wonderfully off-kilter short stories (typically c20 pages). Several centre around office life, but with elements of the bizarre and magical mixed in with the mundane - my review. His stories have also featured in Granta, The London Magazine, TANK, Hotel, Five Dials, in addition to at least two anthologies I've read, Best British Short Stories 2022 from Salt Publishing and Duets from Scratch Books.
The Expansion Project applies a similarly offbeat approach and office setting but at novel length.
It begins:
Tom Crowley faces challenges with scheduling
The morning of Bring Your Daughter to Work Day began for me in silence. The hall sagged with the outlines of our coats, the family coats on the family coat rack, blocking the light from the front door.
And the opening is relatively conventional - Crowley takes his 8yo daughter to the office, rather than to school, although from waking her comments that "the whole day was at the wrong angle somehow" and his exasparation with his daughter, Hen, for relatively mundane things betrays his inner anxiety:
With Hen, there had been no such problems with other kids. She seemed invincible. There was nobody who didn't know her, nobody who had a pet she didn't know the name of. I was jealous of her recall for names and faces, her enthusiasm for other people's lives. She seemed able to devour them like books. And yet, I could never shake the feeling that some of my awkwardness had been passed on to her. Some of this incapacity I have, like anger, and failure, always there beneath the surface. Does everyone have that? When I looked at her I'd worry that they don't, and that I'm not normal, and I have passed on this abnormality to her.
On eventual arrival at the office no one else seems to know it is Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, not even his colleague Alex, with a 6 or 7yo daughter, who joins in all such activities: he would be certain to bring her, I felt sure. If there's an extra-work activity, Alex Wood is there, up to his elbows in banter, dressed as a Christmas elf, ready to win the charity egg-and-spoon race.
But things take an odder turn when Hen disappears, and, then even more oddly, although Tom remains convinced she is lost in the office somewhere, she turns out to have gone to school all along, CCTV footage from the station and the office showing Tom travelled and arrived alone.
From then on the novel takes a more surreal turn. What we are reading turns out to be the records of an archivist, documenting the history of the Capmeadow Expansion Project, including interview by a Liaison Officer with some of those involved. And what starts out as more of an conventional takeover by a conglomorate turns into something rather more, the business park literally expanding in a living organic form into the surrounding area, with buildings formed organically, and with employees whose home and work lives become literally blurred, and with timelines shifting.
A novel that needs to be read rather than summarised - one I'd love to see on the Goldsmiths Prize.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
September 22, 2025
Capmeadow is an ever expanding business park which seems to have a life of its own. Tom Crowley appears to have mislaid his daughter on Bring Your Daughter To Work Day.
All is definitely not as it seems in Pester's excellent novel of the Uncanny (or Weird or Whatever). I've seen this compared to Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation trilogy and I can that it does bear some superficial resemblance in featuring ordinary people encountering an almost semi-sentient environment. But for me this is far superior, it has a throbbing heart at its core
All is definitely not as it seems in Pester's excellent novel of the Uncanny (or Weird or Whatever). I've seen this compared to Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation trilogy and I can that it does bear some superficial resemblance in featuring ordinary people encountering an almost semi-sentient environment. But for me this is far superior, it has a throbbing heart at its core
July 7, 2025
The blurb for this book drew me to it, but in some ways it didn’t live up to my expectations — and in other ways, it surpassed them. That may sound contradictory and confusing, but it feels accurate.
The story starts with a man, Tom, taking his daughter to work for Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. But then she disappears… or maybe she was never there? At first, it seems like he’s having a breakdown, but as more is revealed, it becomes clear that not everything is as it seems — and it gets harder for both the reader and the characters to tell what’s real and what’s not.
That surreal atmosphere is what stood out for me. Buildings appear out of nowhere, and characters seem to struggle with their memories. It reminded me a lot of Severance (which I love), that strange corporate world where the purpose of the work is mysterious and the corporation is more than an employer.
However, while I really enjoyed the style, by the second half of the book I found myself wanting answers and explanations that never came. I felt unsatisfied by the end. It was a bit like one of those TV shows that teases you with mystery but ultimately doesn’t deliver a satisfying conclusion.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.
The story starts with a man, Tom, taking his daughter to work for Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. But then she disappears… or maybe she was never there? At first, it seems like he’s having a breakdown, but as more is revealed, it becomes clear that not everything is as it seems — and it gets harder for both the reader and the characters to tell what’s real and what’s not.
That surreal atmosphere is what stood out for me. Buildings appear out of nowhere, and characters seem to struggle with their memories. It reminded me a lot of Severance (which I love), that strange corporate world where the purpose of the work is mysterious and the corporation is more than an employer.
However, while I really enjoyed the style, by the second half of the book I found myself wanting answers and explanations that never came. I felt unsatisfied by the end. It was a bit like one of those TV shows that teases you with mystery but ultimately doesn’t deliver a satisfying conclusion.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.
August 25, 2025
And yes, the floating market may also have been somewhat engulfed in flames. And there was a certain amount of screaming.
Impossible not to compare this to Severance, but also surprisingly reminiscent of the surreal universe created by Jeff VanderMeer in Annihilation. Totally loved it, and I'll now be eagerly anticipating whatever Ben Pester decides to cook up next.
Impossible not to compare this to Severance, but also surprisingly reminiscent of the surreal universe created by Jeff VanderMeer in Annihilation. Totally loved it, and I'll now be eagerly anticipating whatever Ben Pester decides to cook up next.
September 3, 2025
A haunting, nightmare of a novel that captures the disquieting absurdity of modern working life with both wit and menace.
At its core it’s a story about a man who takes his daughter to work and loses her. It’s also a story about a man who is having a breakdown and thinks he lost his daughter at work even though she was never there in the first place. It’s also not a novel about either of those things.
It is a workplace novel turned inside out, exposing the machinery of capitalism that grinds down individuality until even identity itself begins to unravel.
The novel wears its Kafka-esque influences on its button-down shirt sleeve: the office environment mutates into a space where physical rules bend, bodies shift, and meaning and memory become unstable.
But the latter half became too absurd (even for me) and I lost track of meaning while floundering in the extended metaphors and narrative layers, but maybe that was Pester’s point.
I’m all about vibes, though, and this novel sat firmly in my discomfort zone of strange, philosophical and uncanny. If it were slightly less erratic towards the end, with a few more answers and a little less meandering, this could have been my favourite read of the year. What is certain is that I cannot wait to see what comes out of Ben Pester’s mind next.
At its core it’s a story about a man who takes his daughter to work and loses her. It’s also a story about a man who is having a breakdown and thinks he lost his daughter at work even though she was never there in the first place. It’s also not a novel about either of those things.
It is a workplace novel turned inside out, exposing the machinery of capitalism that grinds down individuality until even identity itself begins to unravel.
The novel wears its Kafka-esque influences on its button-down shirt sleeve: the office environment mutates into a space where physical rules bend, bodies shift, and meaning and memory become unstable.
But the latter half became too absurd (even for me) and I lost track of meaning while floundering in the extended metaphors and narrative layers, but maybe that was Pester’s point.
I’m all about vibes, though, and this novel sat firmly in my discomfort zone of strange, philosophical and uncanny. If it were slightly less erratic towards the end, with a few more answers and a little less meandering, this could have been my favourite read of the year. What is certain is that I cannot wait to see what comes out of Ben Pester’s mind next.
June 21, 2025
Oh. My. God.
September 12, 2025
Ben Pester's debut novel, The Expansion Project explores the absurd rituals and banalities of modern office work.
It's just another day in the office for Tom Crowley except its 'Bring your daughter into work' day and he has his daughter commuting with him and being signed through security. Showing her his desk and meeting the people he works with he starts to realise that no one else has come with their daughters. Then his daughter disappears...
Questions start to be asked - did the daughter ever come into the office, has Ben ever left the campus since her disappearance. The Expansion Project delves into the blurring of boundaries between work and life, and the way work can dissolve life outside of work with the offerings of canteens, fitness suites, clubs and even accommodation. You live to work; you work to live. The Expansion Project highlights the way late-capitalist corporations have a tight grip on shaping society, and the power of work has over people's lives.
A search begins around the building and the ever-expanding scope of Capmeadow business park. Nothing seems to stay the same for very long and people seem to forget what has just happened. Buildings are constantly moving and there's a fog sweeping across the business park. No one seems to know what is happening but are accepting of this state of affairs. Ben Pester taps into the dread of the workplace, ever evolving changes from a vague manager and priorities change. This book perfectly captures the constant confusion and bunny hopping of priorities as the employees of Capmeadow work around the clock but never know what is really happening around them.
There is no definite ending which sums up the whole of the novel, and the way the Capmeadow expansion project has no end date and will continue long after employees leave or even long after the reader stops reading the book. I can see The Expansion project being a book that divides opinion but also becoming a cult favourite. I would definitely read more by Ben Pester, and I have already his short story collection.
It's just another day in the office for Tom Crowley except its 'Bring your daughter into work' day and he has his daughter commuting with him and being signed through security. Showing her his desk and meeting the people he works with he starts to realise that no one else has come with their daughters. Then his daughter disappears...
Questions start to be asked - did the daughter ever come into the office, has Ben ever left the campus since her disappearance. The Expansion Project delves into the blurring of boundaries between work and life, and the way work can dissolve life outside of work with the offerings of canteens, fitness suites, clubs and even accommodation. You live to work; you work to live. The Expansion Project highlights the way late-capitalist corporations have a tight grip on shaping society, and the power of work has over people's lives.
A search begins around the building and the ever-expanding scope of Capmeadow business park. Nothing seems to stay the same for very long and people seem to forget what has just happened. Buildings are constantly moving and there's a fog sweeping across the business park. No one seems to know what is happening but are accepting of this state of affairs. Ben Pester taps into the dread of the workplace, ever evolving changes from a vague manager and priorities change. This book perfectly captures the constant confusion and bunny hopping of priorities as the employees of Capmeadow work around the clock but never know what is really happening around them.
There is no definite ending which sums up the whole of the novel, and the way the Capmeadow expansion project has no end date and will continue long after employees leave or even long after the reader stops reading the book. I can see The Expansion project being a book that divides opinion but also becoming a cult favourite. I would definitely read more by Ben Pester, and I have already his short story collection.
Read
August 24, 2025Just a day at work, what can go wrong?
Everything about this book sounded like exactly what I like. A weird workplace, some weird events, expansion project, Severence vibes? I really liked the premise of this book and complete impossibility to categorize the style of it. It started as fiction, just a weird day with some unusual happenings that are easy to write off as, well, mental health stuff? But quite quickly it gets weird in the sci-fi direction but absolutely unlike what sci-fi usually does, it’s going much more into the uncanny valley territory. The book also quickly stops following just the main character, Tom, and presents a bunch of other perspectives from workers all around the company in the form of interviews as well as descriptions of the events from the perspective of an observer, cctv style. The narrative seems to really follow the expansion project itself, almost like a character, experienced by the workers. I really liked how bizarre it got, it kept getting more and more strange but it also meant that I felt like I wasn’t able to fully understand what was going on. As soon as I finished, I thought that I maybe wasn’t focused enough and second reading would clear things up but I wasn’t sure I wanted to invest the time again. In the end I think this book was doing a lot of interesting things but didn’t hold any particular intellectual value to justify needing multiple reads just to understand what it was trying to convey. On the other hand, I do love books that are so impossible to place, that stand out among all the other reads but they do need some anchor, something truly memorable and The Expansion Project was lacking it.
This book surprises with a lot of interesting narrative styles but seems to lack focus. In parts it felt more like interconnected short stories which were hard to piece together. It does have unique ideas that stand out among other fiction and I’ll be looking forward to this author’s future projects.
Thank you to Granta Publications and NetGalley for the eARC!
Everything about this book sounded like exactly what I like. A weird workplace, some weird events, expansion project, Severence vibes? I really liked the premise of this book and complete impossibility to categorize the style of it. It started as fiction, just a weird day with some unusual happenings that are easy to write off as, well, mental health stuff? But quite quickly it gets weird in the sci-fi direction but absolutely unlike what sci-fi usually does, it’s going much more into the uncanny valley territory. The book also quickly stops following just the main character, Tom, and presents a bunch of other perspectives from workers all around the company in the form of interviews as well as descriptions of the events from the perspective of an observer, cctv style. The narrative seems to really follow the expansion project itself, almost like a character, experienced by the workers. I really liked how bizarre it got, it kept getting more and more strange but it also meant that I felt like I wasn’t able to fully understand what was going on. As soon as I finished, I thought that I maybe wasn’t focused enough and second reading would clear things up but I wasn’t sure I wanted to invest the time again. In the end I think this book was doing a lot of interesting things but didn’t hold any particular intellectual value to justify needing multiple reads just to understand what it was trying to convey. On the other hand, I do love books that are so impossible to place, that stand out among all the other reads but they do need some anchor, something truly memorable and The Expansion Project was lacking it.
This book surprises with a lot of interesting narrative styles but seems to lack focus. In parts it felt more like interconnected short stories which were hard to piece together. It does have unique ideas that stand out among other fiction and I’ll be looking forward to this author’s future projects.
Thank you to Granta Publications and NetGalley for the eARC!
Read
July 3, 2025Sims meets A Thousand Plateaus, that's how my brain decided to make sense of what it has read. Jokes aside, how else can we understand the immanence of capitalism that erases the boundaries between public and private, labor and leisure, company and worker? As Deleuze and Guattari demonstrate in the chapter "7000 B.C.: Apparatus of Capture," the axiomatics of capitalism circumscribe the social sphere—and, I would add, the more-than-human sphere as well. The axioms of addition/subtraction and saturation are especially pertinent. I can't help but quote what they wrote:
Capitalism is indeed an axiomatic, because it has no laws but immanent ones. It would like for us to believe that it confronts the limits of the Universe, the extreme limit of resources and energy. But all it confronts are its own limits (the periodic depreciation of existing capital); all it repels or displaces are its own limits (the formation of new capital, in new industries with a high profit rate). This is the history of oil and nuclear power. And it does both at once: capitalism confronts its own limits and simultaneously displaces them, setting them down again farther along (ATP, 463).
Indeed, The Expansion Project materializes the displacement of the limits of the capital. Capmeadow literally expands into the space by producing itself, thereby deterritorializing its own limits. The deterritorialization (or decoding) of relatively stable things, such as kinship relations and workplace stability, makes all the characters displaced, acting out, and ontologically unstable. They might be "here" or "elsewhere"; it matters little, as long as it is all on a single plane of immanence that pushes further and further into the inside/outside. Genius novel.
Capitalism is indeed an axiomatic, because it has no laws but immanent ones. It would like for us to believe that it confronts the limits of the Universe, the extreme limit of resources and energy. But all it confronts are its own limits (the periodic depreciation of existing capital); all it repels or displaces are its own limits (the formation of new capital, in new industries with a high profit rate). This is the history of oil and nuclear power. And it does both at once: capitalism confronts its own limits and simultaneously displaces them, setting them down again farther along (ATP, 463).
Indeed, The Expansion Project materializes the displacement of the limits of the capital. Capmeadow literally expands into the space by producing itself, thereby deterritorializing its own limits. The deterritorialization (or decoding) of relatively stable things, such as kinship relations and workplace stability, makes all the characters displaced, acting out, and ontologically unstable. They might be "here" or "elsewhere"; it matters little, as long as it is all on a single plane of immanence that pushes further and further into the inside/outside. Genius novel.
September 2, 2025
there are obvious comparisons to severance with this novel, and fans of the show will 100% love this book, but i'd also like to say how much it feels like an office-themed version of annihilation, night vale or even lost in the garden. it really hits the spot with the "everything is weird and that is fine" vibes.
i'm usually not a very visual reader due to things like aphantasia, but i got some very strong images in my mind's eye while reading this. hopefully this one gains some traction because it really deserves the hype. it's a little abstract, a little experimental but it has a softness and a delicateness to it that makes it more accessible.
i'm usually not a very visual reader due to things like aphantasia, but i got some very strong images in my mind's eye while reading this. hopefully this one gains some traction because it really deserves the hype. it's a little abstract, a little experimental but it has a softness and a delicateness to it that makes it more accessible.
September 14, 2025
This is a dark satire on corporate culture.
Tom Crowley, a stressed and exploited father, is taking his daughter to work with him. He works in the burgeoning Capmeadow Business Park in marketing, busy writing language for guides and signage and illustrations for use around the growing site. On arriving at work, it turns out nobody else knows anything about 'bring your daughter to work' day, and the CEO has called an emergency meeting which might be about job losses. Then, Tom’s daughter disappears, for him to realise an hour or so later, that she wasn’t there to begin with - he’s invited to peruse the CCTV footage of him entering the building. Nonetheless, Tom cannot shake the nagging feeling that his daughter is still there somewhere, lost in the vents or something.
It sounds an interesting premis, and was what drew me to the book. However, Pester's style is to present the reader with random mixed pieces of the plot, and invite them to fit them together, jigsaw style - its complicated. Further, the humour didn't work for me. Perhaps for those closer to a corporate lifestyle will get more out of it.
Tom Crowley, a stressed and exploited father, is taking his daughter to work with him. He works in the burgeoning Capmeadow Business Park in marketing, busy writing language for guides and signage and illustrations for use around the growing site. On arriving at work, it turns out nobody else knows anything about 'bring your daughter to work' day, and the CEO has called an emergency meeting which might be about job losses. Then, Tom’s daughter disappears, for him to realise an hour or so later, that she wasn’t there to begin with - he’s invited to peruse the CCTV footage of him entering the building. Nonetheless, Tom cannot shake the nagging feeling that his daughter is still there somewhere, lost in the vents or something.
It sounds an interesting premis, and was what drew me to the book. However, Pester's style is to present the reader with random mixed pieces of the plot, and invite them to fit them together, jigsaw style - its complicated. Further, the humour didn't work for me. Perhaps for those closer to a corporate lifestyle will get more out of it.
Read
September 14, 2025Dnf. This was my first (and probably last) NetGalley book. I simply listen now so reading a digital copy was too tricky and I found nothing about the novel to pull me in. It was clever but I had no relationship with it.
September 5, 2025
This book made me feel so strange!!! What am I doing with my life? What's the point of capitalism? What's the point of anything? Am I real? Is anything real??? All I know is I'm so glad to not be in that 9-5 office life.
"I believe I contributed to several important discussions about language within the new Capmeadow estate. Space, I was asked a lot about the way we can describe space that would not feel alienating to those with 'legacy' concepts of space."
"I believe I contributed to several important discussions about language within the new Capmeadow estate. Space, I was asked a lot about the way we can describe space that would not feel alienating to those with 'legacy' concepts of space."
September 24, 2025
Loved this to start with. Very Severance coded. Works well as a satire of corporate life too.
But…. the ending felt abrupt and unfulfilling. I feel like none of the story was fully complete.
But…. the ending felt abrupt and unfulfilling. I feel like none of the story was fully complete.
May 16, 2025
Tom took his daughter to work.
Tom didn’t take his daughter to work.
Both are true and yet neither is true and honestly you’re best going into this knowing nothing more. This book grabbed my curiosity by throat and didn’t let up until I finished it. The characters are varied, unique and incredibly sharply written and the perfectly balanced panic and odd detachment that seep in from page 1 create a real sense of unease. This is the kind of book that’s meant to be read in a group and discussed after each chapter. At any given moment I didn’t know if I was bracing for the end of the world or the arrival of a Utopian resolution fitting of Black Mirror. In a world where Severance sets the bar for office based thrillers, The Expansion Project carves out its own unique corner and really grows into something that I feel will sit with me for days.
Tom didn’t take his daughter to work.
Both are true and yet neither is true and honestly you’re best going into this knowing nothing more. This book grabbed my curiosity by throat and didn’t let up until I finished it. The characters are varied, unique and incredibly sharply written and the perfectly balanced panic and odd detachment that seep in from page 1 create a real sense of unease. This is the kind of book that’s meant to be read in a group and discussed after each chapter. At any given moment I didn’t know if I was bracing for the end of the world or the arrival of a Utopian resolution fitting of Black Mirror. In a world where Severance sets the bar for office based thrillers, The Expansion Project carves out its own unique corner and really grows into something that I feel will sit with me for days.
August 25, 2025
he managed to reach through to her i’m going to throw up
the company tried to become a seamless workforce but humanity still pulled through
the company tried to become a seamless workforce but humanity still pulled through
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 12, 2025
A disorienting, unsettling descent into a near-future corporate dystopia that has lingered in my thoughts long after turning the final page. If you're a fan of the Apple TV series Severance, with its sterile corridors and unnerving dissection of work-life balance, this book will feel hauntingly familiar, yet distinctly its own brand of bizarre.
The Expansion Project plunges the reader into a world that is unnervingly close to our own, yet subtly and profoundly wrong. I couldn't work out where it was set so I had this evolving image - first I thought it was Japan, then America, then UK.
The narrative is intentionally bewildering. I spent a significant portion of the book with a creeping sense of unease, unsure of what was real and what was a symptom of the characters' unravelling sanity. The plot, as much as it can be pinned down, centres on the ever-expanding and logic-defying Capmeadow Business Park, a place where the laws of physics and reason seem to be optional. The protagonist, a mid-level employee, is already adrift in this corporate malaise when his daughter vanishes during a "bring your daughter to work day."
Did I enjoy it? I'm still not entirely sure. It was a challenging, often frustrating read that offered no easy answers. But that, I believe, is precisely the point. The Expansion Project is a commentary on the dehumanising nature of corporate ambition and the quiet horror of losing oneself within the machine. It will undoubtedly haunt your thoughts long after you've finished
The Expansion Project plunges the reader into a world that is unnervingly close to our own, yet subtly and profoundly wrong. I couldn't work out where it was set so I had this evolving image - first I thought it was Japan, then America, then UK.
The narrative is intentionally bewildering. I spent a significant portion of the book with a creeping sense of unease, unsure of what was real and what was a symptom of the characters' unravelling sanity. The plot, as much as it can be pinned down, centres on the ever-expanding and logic-defying Capmeadow Business Park, a place where the laws of physics and reason seem to be optional. The protagonist, a mid-level employee, is already adrift in this corporate malaise when his daughter vanishes during a "bring your daughter to work day."
Did I enjoy it? I'm still not entirely sure. It was a challenging, often frustrating read that offered no easy answers. But that, I believe, is precisely the point. The Expansion Project is a commentary on the dehumanising nature of corporate ambition and the quiet horror of losing oneself within the machine. It will undoubtedly haunt your thoughts long after you've finished
December 15, 2025
itself an irruption of new weird genre fiction into a literary imprint, the expansion project takes for its subject the post-pandemic eversion of the corporate workplace and its concomitant breach of spatiotemporal and linguistic borders. captures the absurdity of office diktats and the psychic toll of microsoft teams but mostly does a good job evoking those other key workplace affects: boredom and pointlessness
November 18, 2025
I was really excited for The Expansion Project as I thought the premise sounded very cool. Unfortunately, the execution wasn't quite there for me.
The story very slowly unfurls itself through a number of different perspectives and mediums. Most of this is through transcribed interviews, primarily with the main character, Tom Crowley. I am not a big fan of this transcribed speech style and I didn't really like him as a character.
The book does a decent job of building mystery throughout and it's really a "wait and see" kind of job, but there isn't much pay-off. The ending is quite abrupt and don't expect to get much sense of how or why the expansion project is taking place. 2½ stars from me.
The story very slowly unfurls itself through a number of different perspectives and mediums. Most of this is through transcribed interviews, primarily with the main character, Tom Crowley. I am not a big fan of this transcribed speech style and I didn't really like him as a character.
The book does a decent job of building mystery throughout and it's really a "wait and see" kind of job, but there isn't much pay-off. The ending is quite abrupt and don't expect to get much sense of how or why the expansion project is taking place. 2½ stars from me.
August 16, 2025
Amidst a vaguely-defined corporate expansion plan, a man loses his daughter when he brings her into the office for a Bring Your Daughter To Work Day that only he remembers—except it turns out that she was never at work with him. From this point out, Pester's novel only gets denser and stranger, interpolating voices across this dreamlike workplace and comments from a mysterious archivist who seems to be cataloguing details about this company and its happenings. THE EXPANSION PROJECT's best moments are when Pester creates a liminal, half-remembered space out of office life and corporate bureaucracy, hinting at something more sinister beneath the playfulness of his prose. However, I found this book's stylistic riffs, with long footnotes and shifting perspectives, often frustratingly heavy, with characters drifting into monologues that left me struggling to follow the thread of the plot. The atmosphere of this novel is intriguing, but without a little more plot to anchor my understanding, I didn't get as much out of Pester's corporate satire or the emotional hook of this story.
September 22, 2025
Loved this book 🥹
I don’t have kids, but this story (whether or not that was the author’s intention) gave me a of a sense of what it might be like, more than anything else I’ve read. The opening really stuck with me — all the little details of the morning routine and the commute, those moments that were meant to be sweet but ended up stressful (croissants, napkins, train questions). I could so relate to that, and I think it’ll stay with me for a long time.
And shout out to all the other office workers stress-eating katsu sandos to get through the day 🥪🤙🏼
I don’t have kids, but this story (whether or not that was the author’s intention) gave me a of a sense of what it might be like, more than anything else I’ve read. The opening really stuck with me — all the little details of the morning routine and the commute, those moments that were meant to be sweet but ended up stressful (croissants, napkins, train questions). I could so relate to that, and I think it’ll stay with me for a long time.
And shout out to all the other office workers stress-eating katsu sandos to get through the day 🥪🤙🏼
June 6, 2025
What an interesting book!
A cross between a mystery, a dystopia and a critique of work-life balance and family life.
I found the book very enjoyable to read, but it will definitely need a re-read to understand it more
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.
A cross between a mystery, a dystopia and a critique of work-life balance and family life.
I found the book very enjoyable to read, but it will definitely need a re-read to understand it more
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.
September 15, 2025
I just cannot wait for Ben’s next book. A whirlwind of a book; unsettling, funny, tender and deeply clever. So many levels to this work and I’ll be thinking about this for a very long time. Savour every word.
August 14, 2025
Wow.
I don't think I'll be able to write a proper review that will do this book justice. It was everything I love in a book: weird, non-linear narrative, flawed characters, mystery. I thought the overall concept was really well executed, and I read non-stop until I finished. I then regretted this because now I feel bereft.
Thank you to NetGalley and Granta for the ARC
I don't think I'll be able to write a proper review that will do this book justice. It was everything I love in a book: weird, non-linear narrative, flawed characters, mystery. I thought the overall concept was really well executed, and I read non-stop until I finished. I then regretted this because now I feel bereft.
Thank you to NetGalley and Granta for the ARC
August 11, 2025
Utterly loved it. It will stay with me for a long time 😮💨
August 8, 2025
It is hard to know where to start with a book like Ben Pester’s The Expansion Project. Possibly the best thing is to consider what it resembles. The Expansion Project is a surreal deconstruction of modern corporate culture that reads a like The Office as written by Franz Kafka by way of Welcome to Nightvale. It is in turns scary, scathing, insightful, achingly sad and compassionate. And despite its complete weirdness does not fail to hit its target.
The book opens with a narrative by a guy called Tom Crowley. Tom talks about the day he took his six-year-old to his office at a place called Capmeadow for ‘bring your daughter to work day’. Even their commute, which involves his daughter wandering away at the train station, is fraught. But worse is when his daughter goes missing at the office. Only it turns out that he never brought his daughter to Capmeadow, that she was at school all along and while he was looking for her was safely at home. That does not stop him continuing to look for her.
It is revealed fairly early on that Tom is telling his story to someone and that a range of stories of people who work at Capmeadow are being captured by someone called The Archivist. Other narrators have similar bizarre experiences particularly as Capmeadow engages in something called the expansion project. It appears this project is the Capmeadow campus literally expanding - adding roads and housing and restaurants and even a museum. Many employees find that the easiest thing to do is just go with the flow and live there in the corporate accommodation. This expansion is accompanied by a strange mist that has different psychological effects on the people who breathe it in. And that is before things get really weird.
As already noted, The Expansion Project is a take down of modern corporate culture – from CEO town halls to video conferences to security passes to the idea of office presence. But it comes at all of these things from a surreal angle so it is barbs are likely to land more squarely for those (and there are plenty of us) who have lived it than those who have not. But either way, The Expansion Project will both enthral and puzzle readers looking for something that takes the familiar and makes it compellingly bizarre
The book opens with a narrative by a guy called Tom Crowley. Tom talks about the day he took his six-year-old to his office at a place called Capmeadow for ‘bring your daughter to work day’. Even their commute, which involves his daughter wandering away at the train station, is fraught. But worse is when his daughter goes missing at the office. Only it turns out that he never brought his daughter to Capmeadow, that she was at school all along and while he was looking for her was safely at home. That does not stop him continuing to look for her.
It is revealed fairly early on that Tom is telling his story to someone and that a range of stories of people who work at Capmeadow are being captured by someone called The Archivist. Other narrators have similar bizarre experiences particularly as Capmeadow engages in something called the expansion project. It appears this project is the Capmeadow campus literally expanding - adding roads and housing and restaurants and even a museum. Many employees find that the easiest thing to do is just go with the flow and live there in the corporate accommodation. This expansion is accompanied by a strange mist that has different psychological effects on the people who breathe it in. And that is before things get really weird.
As already noted, The Expansion Project is a take down of modern corporate culture – from CEO town halls to video conferences to security passes to the idea of office presence. But it comes at all of these things from a surreal angle so it is barbs are likely to land more squarely for those (and there are plenty of us) who have lived it than those who have not. But either way, The Expansion Project will both enthral and puzzle readers looking for something that takes the familiar and makes it compellingly bizarre
November 30, 2025
I'm not sure why I gave THE EXPANSION PROJECT by Ben Pester four stars. I didn't get it. But maybe that's because I'm not supposed to? That's my take, and I'm sticking to it. Part sci-fi, part mystery, part workplace satire, part sub/unconscious, THE EXPANSION PROJECT begins with Tom Crowley taking his daughter to work on what he understands may be "Take your daughter to work day," only to find that no such day exists, that he may have lost his daughter forever, or he may have never brought her to begin with (as supported by the CCTV footage that seems altered to remove all responsibility for the ever expanding Capmeadow Business Park). Much of the novel is about Tom's searching for work/life balance, my favorite section being one in which Tom is stuck on the stairs at home talking to his boss Cath, while his life passes around him. Some of the book is from other perspectives, but much of it seems the half-scattered attempts of an archivist to put history together of the company that continues to organically grow and morph so that it takes on a life of its own.
While much of it bewildered me, it never ceased to entertain. But that's just if you, like me, enjoy being as lost or confused as the workers who populate Capmeadow. As they traverse an artificial landscape that often seems to control their lives, we cannot forget that they allow this to happen. Work may be sinister and unpleasant, it may indeed "eat" your family, leaving you paranoid and unhappy and fretful, but at least, according to the author Ben Pester, you get to keep your job. Comparisons to the television show SEVERANCE are spot on. Again, not sure if I think it's a good novel, but I had fun being lost in the maze that is Capmeadow.
While much of it bewildered me, it never ceased to entertain. But that's just if you, like me, enjoy being as lost or confused as the workers who populate Capmeadow. As they traverse an artificial landscape that often seems to control their lives, we cannot forget that they allow this to happen. Work may be sinister and unpleasant, it may indeed "eat" your family, leaving you paranoid and unhappy and fretful, but at least, according to the author Ben Pester, you get to keep your job. Comparisons to the television show SEVERANCE are spot on. Again, not sure if I think it's a good novel, but I had fun being lost in the maze that is Capmeadow.
September 29, 2025
Surreal yet defies categorisation
—
‘You don’t have to be mad to work here…’ as the old saying goes, or perhaps your workplace is sure to turn you mad. Tom Crowley, a low level employee of the Capmeadow Business Park, takes his daughter to work on a Bring Your Daughter To Work Day, only it’s not, and when his daughter gets lost, it turns out she was never there, safely at school the whole time. All evidence shows Tom on his own. In his own mind, Tom remains sure that his daughter is lost at work, while his family and his daughter are where they should be; Tom slowly questions his own sanity as he seems to be at work and at home at the same time. The expansion of the Capmeadow Business Park stopping for nothing, not logic, time, space, reason, and other workers begin to see the cracks between the expansion and the rest of the world, and maybe Tom isn’t as out of it as he seems. Or is he?
Like Severance on a drug trip, this is a novel that defies categorisation or even logic. As the reader perches on the shoulders of Tom and his colleagues, watching the world turn gradually more and more surreal, you will feel as if the world is conspiring to gaslight you. It’s so well written that it will disgust you with how insidious the internal logic (or lack thereof) creeps up on you, the way that bureaucracy hides its own monsters in its order, jargon and corporate blamelessness. For anyone who’s every worked in a soul-destroying job, and realised it before they became part of the unstoppable machine.
Three and a half stars
—
‘You don’t have to be mad to work here…’ as the old saying goes, or perhaps your workplace is sure to turn you mad. Tom Crowley, a low level employee of the Capmeadow Business Park, takes his daughter to work on a Bring Your Daughter To Work Day, only it’s not, and when his daughter gets lost, it turns out she was never there, safely at school the whole time. All evidence shows Tom on his own. In his own mind, Tom remains sure that his daughter is lost at work, while his family and his daughter are where they should be; Tom slowly questions his own sanity as he seems to be at work and at home at the same time. The expansion of the Capmeadow Business Park stopping for nothing, not logic, time, space, reason, and other workers begin to see the cracks between the expansion and the rest of the world, and maybe Tom isn’t as out of it as he seems. Or is he?
Like Severance on a drug trip, this is a novel that defies categorisation or even logic. As the reader perches on the shoulders of Tom and his colleagues, watching the world turn gradually more and more surreal, you will feel as if the world is conspiring to gaslight you. It’s so well written that it will disgust you with how insidious the internal logic (or lack thereof) creeps up on you, the way that bureaucracy hides its own monsters in its order, jargon and corporate blamelessness. For anyone who’s every worked in a soul-destroying job, and realised it before they became part of the unstoppable machine.
Three and a half stars
May 24, 2025
A day starts fairly normally, if a bit off kilter, then gets stranger and stranger. Tom's workplace is having a Bring your Daughter to Work Day, so he and his daughter, nicknamed Hen, are on their way to Capmeadow Business Park. Despite no one having any knowledge of the event, Hen is checked in and subsequently disappears. But no one else recalls her being at Capmeadow, and CCTV footage only shows Tom, no Hen. Tom continues to believe that she is missing, even when he picks her up from school or talks to her at home, worried that he never seems able to see her properly. As he continues to search, we hear from other employees at Capmeadow and their thoughts about its continuing expansion. Lots of unreliable narrators? Is Tom losing it, or is everyone else? Are these people even in the same time or place? What is Capmeadow? A business park, a town, a multiplying organic entity?
The book satirises the absurdities of corporate culture and the struggle to maintain a work-life balance, while also portraying parental anxiety and the loss of childhood. It constructs a world that's mysterious, unsettling, sad, and maddening. It's a world where work consumes everything and fills all available space. It's a disturbing vision. It's reminiscent of Severance and although it doesn't quite hit those heights (I don't think we get to know the characters as well here), it's still an ambitious debut. So if you like enigmatic Severance-style weirdness, follow Tom's signs to Capmeadow...
The book satirises the absurdities of corporate culture and the struggle to maintain a work-life balance, while also portraying parental anxiety and the loss of childhood. It constructs a world that's mysterious, unsettling, sad, and maddening. It's a world where work consumes everything and fills all available space. It's a disturbing vision. It's reminiscent of Severance and although it doesn't quite hit those heights (I don't think we get to know the characters as well here), it's still an ambitious debut. So if you like enigmatic Severance-style weirdness, follow Tom's signs to Capmeadow...
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