Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

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I was never like, "Oh, another tragic divorced guy who drinks," or "Oh, another kids-are-so-cruel childhood reminiscence. I'll dispense with the easiest bit of criticism first: though it is the titular story, "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned" is actually the only story set in something other than what I fairly assume to be present day, the only story to stretch realism. This cinematic opening, full of garish colors and things not quite what they seem, introduces an unputdownable whodunit that centers on the molestation of a young boy. The preemption law enables him to dispose of his cabin and cornfield to the next class of emigrants; and, to employ his own figures, he ‘breaks for the high timber,’ ‘clears out for the New Purchase,’ or migrates to Arkansas or Texas, to work the same process over.

Simultaneously, his fiction gained traction, culminating in last year’s New Yorker publication of the story “Leopard. We were surprised to see the kid with the thumbs in his belt bust forth from a stand of ash trees, yanking some poor half-dead citizen along behind him.Tower's stories take place in the middle parts of America, which isn't to say the midwest - he takes on the bored teenagers, the divorced fathers, the estranged brothers. In the title story of his debut collection, "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned," Wells Tower uses contemporary American idiom to tell the story of a Viking having second thoughts about his career as a plunderer and pillager. As for the rest of the collection, or rather, "the book," if you go by a kind of exception-makes-the-rule perspective, there are certain things Tower is very, very good at. The sexy, hilarious prom king here is obviously the title story -- the last one in the book -- which, in case you haven't heard, is about FUCKING VIKINGS.

Some of that comes from their youth – many are children or adolescents – but more of it comes from the language, which is more playful and expansive than the dirty realism and minimalism that Tower clearly admires. Still, a strange choice, even considering the fact that such a title becomes emblematic of a basic kind of desperation and loss tucked deep within the characters of this collection. To make matters worse, this summer has been a non-event: a soggy, cloudy affair punctuated by malarial hot flushes.Can’t tell us anything about a hailstorm, or locusts and shit, or a bunch of damn dragons coming around and scaring the piss out of everybody’s wife. He had a good crust of snot going in his mustache, not a pleasant thing to look at, but then, he had no one around to find it disagreeable. It certainly isn't true to any historical Viking history, yes the names are from that part of the world, but they speak perfect, modern English, and at least twice they are seen saying 'motherfucker', a term I highly doubt a Viking word use even in his native tongue. Tower has a great deal of formal skill, he knows how to tell a story well, develop his characters, leaves much to the reader to divine, and blasts through the checklist that you’d find in any good creative writing class. Because all the stories here (except one) are cut from the crazy cultural layercake that is contemporary America, the extraordinarily ordinary scenes of bad romances, sudden fights, pleasure and boredom, difficult brothers, ex-wives, stepfathers, tv, a little too much to drink, a little bit of dope, sexy cousins, places you really wouldn’t want to be, and of course places you really would like to be, for a week or two at least.

No one looking in on us would have known we were the reason this girl was missing an arm, and also the reason, probably, that nobody asked where Bruce’s wife had gone. my friend mike compares these stories to flannery o'connor's but the only similarity i see, besides the extraordinarily precise, rich, and sensual use of language, is their intensity. And kind of like you might want to don a bunch of plaid and pose for the front of a Brawny paper towels package.He said he didn’t know the man, but that he probably deserved something better the next time around. Bullshit, of course, seeing as Haakon made it down the hill by himself and crammed his tender stomach with about nine tough steaks. It hits some of my buttons, is why, exploring as it does the sometimes hilarious, sometimes testy relations between adult brothers (I have three). by my count, there are three abused children (nothing graphic at all) and more children, some in flashback, whose childhood seems pretty blown; a number of youngish-to-middle-aged guys who have been taken by the currents of life to places they didn't really want to go, with no idea about what to do now that they are there; and a lot of non-protagonist characters with distinctly unhappy or unappealing lives.