Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned: Stories

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is a short story collection that truly lives up to its title. The happenings that populate its pages are bleak indeed, its characters a who's who of damaged lives and bad decisions. And while parts of it can be a touch too Grand Guignol it is remarkable how Wells Tower manages to make most of it profound and affecting rather than irksome.It starts with some fine turns of phrase that make depression into something witty ("My hangover was calamitous," "for quite a while, we'd been nothing but an argument looking for different ways to happen," etc.). The crosses these characters bear have weight, but they feel less burdensome under Towers' deft guidance. But what really makes this collection poignant is its author's ability to empathize with his sad sack subjects - one can almost feel that he has affection for their unique abilities to make messes of their lives, and when he writes about their failures it is with a knowing wink to the reader. It is almost as though Tower takes pride in giving lives of desperation (both quiet and explosively loud) a spotlight - a chance to shine for one brief moment and be understood.The element of too-muchness does ultimately keep Everything Ravaged from being a great collection, but it remains a very readable work from someone who is definitely a talent to watch. I for one am intrigued to see what he comes up with next.Grade: B

"Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned" finally arrived to my door!I'd read the good reviews and kept seeing the book different places, my anticipation was building..Wells Tower can write, extremely well. His stories are very, very well written and leave you wanting to know more at the end.These stories are the kind most readers will either love or hate. The book consists of nine stories, with each story being around 18-30 pages long.Of the nine stories, I like all but two of them. "Wild America" was long and didn't really go anywhere and the title story "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned" didn't blow me away, as it did to some reviewers it seems. The story was supposed to have alot of WOW factor, but I've read too many other graphic stories for that.My favorites were:RetreatDown Through the ValleyLeopardDoor In Your EyeThe great story "On the Show" has all the makings of a good novel and has a great cast of characters to go along with it.Overall, a very good collection and a great start for Wells Tower~

I read "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned" when it was first published, and have waiting impatiently, ever since--a long time, it feels like--waiting for anothervolume of stories or a novel to come from W.T. I am brought here by two unconnected things: first, I just finished reading two volumes of stories by George Saunders,whose new collection made the cover of a weekly magazine, I believe, and was highlighted on the cover of the NYT Book Review section, with the words,"The Best Book You'll Read All Year." Well, you know, I finished the two books, and though I thought they were good, they don't move me. The second thing thatbrings me here is the fact that I tossed a book (long listed for the Booker Prize last year) called "The Teleportation Accident" without finishing it.Together, these two unconnected reading experiences made me cast about for what I'd like to read again, since I have no new books left in my house. (Well, I do haveone or two, but they don't call to me, really, and so I'm ignoring them). So, long preamble over, I came to look up Wells Tower to see if he by chance had somethingcoming out. No dice. Then I glanced at the reviews, which are all over the place. Do you find, as I do, that often, when a book breaks readership into smithereens,there's often something really there? Whether it's Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections," or Ashley Judd's performance in the small film "Bug," the really interestingefforts explode among readers and create hugely varying reactions.Me, I loved Tower's book. It's been a year or two since I read the book, and I can't comment specifically on any individual story, but if you're passing by and areconsidering buying the book, oh, I hope my review will be the one that tilts you toward the purchase. If you're a serious reader of fiction, you will be pleased.

This debut collection of short stories shimmers with the casual brilliance of an experienced writer, and no wonder. Tower has been and is still writing both fiction and non-fiction for prestigious publications like the Washington Post and GQ. Several of these stories have also been published previously in Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker and McSweeney's.The stories in this volume are as varied as they are engaging, united perhaps by their focus on characters in tenuous relationships that occur in unexpected places, and in each of them, Tower displays an acerbic wit and (at times) a macabre sense of humour, that gives him a resonance that is equal parts Raymond Carver and Chuck Palahniuk, and a yet unique voice.In the first story, "The Brown Coast", Bob Munroe hides out in his uncle's chalet after a series of bad decisions and mishaps, and strikes up an accidental acquaintance with his new neighbours, Derrick and Claire, and tries to build an aquarium of sea creatures he finds trapped in the rocky shallows of the less than scenic shoreline that Bob had been led to expect. Claire hands him a brown slug to add to his collection which turns out to be a poisonous sea cucumber that wipes out his entire new sealife colony. While devastated, "Bob felt a kind of kinship with the the slug. Had he been born a sea creature, he doubted God would have robed him in blue and yellow like the splendid dead fish at his feet..... No, he'd probably have been family to this sea cucumber, built in the image of sewage and cursed with a chemical belch that ruined every lovely thing that drifted near." What he eventually does with the sea cucumber sums up Bob's perspective of this realisation of his place in this world, tongue firmly in cheek.Tower's idiomatic sense of place, in both the American suburban, and the outbacks and desolate areas, and the dirty realism of his stories featuring overwhelmingly lonely and disconnected characters are especially reminiscent of Carver. The Scandinavian Vikings in the titular story that concludes the collection, stands out from the rest of the stories for its displaced time and place, as well for some of the most violent bloodcurdling scenes in the entire book, but the flawed Everyman figure that narrates the story is no more less relatable than the others, be they an 83-year-old man intrigued by a reputed but reclusive whore in the apartment building opposite his daughter's flat in "Door in Your Eye", the teenager who feels conflicted about her prettier cousin and makes a risky decision in "Wild America", and or the young layabout who outstays his welcome at his stepfather's in "On the Show".This book was published in 2009 and there has not been a second published volume as far as I know, and I can only hope that the fuse hasn't blown out for Tower with such a brief spark of brilliance. More please.

This writer's debut is a collection of short tales which whilst differing completely in the characters situations and motivations, all investigate the diversity of human emotion, whether this be the jealousy a young girl feels about her beautiful cousin or the abandonment of a man whose father suffers with extreme memory loss. Like the characters I too found myself quickly changing dispositions whilst reading this book; on one page I found myself laughing the next there was a deep sense of sorrow. Some of the decisions the characters make made me squirm with the feeling of impending doom. The personalities are drawn so deftly by Wells Tower making them thoroughly believable and like-able that when they make a stupid decision or find themselves swamped in danger the reader feels for them, worries for them and on many occasions laughs with them. The prose is beautiful, full of razor-sharp wit and human observation that makes for an highly enjoyable read.For the most part the stories are just the right length leaving you fulfilled but not bored and the difference in the characters also helps you to keep on reading. So, if you want slice of reality with a side-order of laughs and heart-ache, try this book. Also, if you enjoy this try these  Rust and Bone  and  Knockemstiff  Thank you. Rust and BoneKnockemstiff

This collection of short stories pulls together a mix of people who are all unsatisfied with their lives and uncomfortable about something.Many reviewers have pointed out, and I agree, that the writing is wonderful. The phrases are amazingly descriptive and the author is able to quickly bring into the readers head an image, a feeling or an emotion with a minimum of words - very clever.I occasionally try short story collections and this one was highly recommended so I gave it a go. I was disappointed about the lack of variety from one story to the next, sometimes it seemed as though it was the same person in subsequent stories. I think the collection could have been made better with more consideration of the sequence of the stories. Maybe the way to read this book is one story at a time with plenty of other reading in between.If you particularly like short stories then I think this collection would be worth a read. If not, then I would suggest giving it a miss.

I am amazed how, with so few words, a small group of characters can be so convincingly brought to life in 3 dimensional detail. This is, I suppose, what fiction is meant for; you are escorted to another person's life for a short while, and then you leave.What a pity that the lives portrayed here are so bleak! These are people - mostly men, mostly modern, mostly middle-aged - whose lives have become stuck in a rut, usually of their own making, and out of which they are quite unable to extricate themselves. The events within each story track the characters' dreary reality downwards; sometimes a step, but more usually a notch.Two cover-reviewers found humour in these tales: I saw none.

Wells Towers's short stories are utterly brilliant. Disaffected, angry men get into often hilarious situations in their dealings with other people. I laughed out loud often reading this book. The last story - the title one - is very odd though and , to me, doesn't sit well in the book. However, HIGHLY recommended. I loved it overall.