Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned: Stories
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Viking marauders descend on a much-plundered island, hoping some mayhem will shake off the winter blahs. A man is booted out of his home after his wife discovers that the print of a bare foot on the inside of his windshield doesn't match her own. Teenage cousins, drugged by summer, meet with a reckoning in the woods. A boy runs off to the carnival after his stepfather bites him in a brawl.
In the stories of Wells Tower, families fall apart and messily try to reassemble themselves. His version of America is touched with the seamy splendor of the dropout, the misfit: failed inventors, boozy dreamers, hapless fathers, wayward sons. Combining electric prose with savage wit, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is a major debut, announcing a voice we have not heard before.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The stories in this outstanding debut collection explore the troubled relationships of men down on their luck, in failed marriages, estranged from family, caught in imbroglios between sons and their fathers and stepfathers, and even, in "Wild America," the subtle and ferocious competition between teenage girls. Bob Monroe, the protagonist of "The Brown Coast," loses his job, his inheritance and his wife after the death of his father. The narrator of "Down Through the Valley," meanwhile, is persuaded to drive his ex-wife's boyfriend home from an ashram after he injures himself. In "Leopard," the threat of a missing pet leopard lurking in the woods hints at a troubled 11-year-old's rage toward his stepfather. The narrator of "Down Through the Valley" has a savage freak-out that terrifies him. The strange and magnificent title story, in which Vikings set off again toward an oft-raided island, beautifully ties the collection together in its heartbreaking final paragraph. Tower's uncommon mastery of tone and wide-ranging sympathy creates a fine tension between wry humor and the primal rage that seethes just below the surface of each of his characters.
Customer Reviews
A real master with words
I bought this book after reading his long article on the Mitt Romney campaign and realizing this author could turn a phrase. He obviously loves language, because he finely tunes every sentence for maximum impact. Reading this book has been a pleasure.
A collection of stories with no endings
Pretty good stories. Well written. Compelling... except every single story, just when it gets going, ends very abruptly. Very odd. I didn't even read the last two stories; I got sick of it. Maybe the last story somehow was the perfect ending to all of the stories. I guess I'll never know.
Overrated
I did not finish this book as I was disappointed after reading all the great reviews. To be fair I am not a big short story fan so I will keep to novels & non-fiction books primarily. None of the first 4 or 5 stories had much impact on me so that was the end. I have not seen anything new by Towers so wonder what happened...EAF