A review by kinbote4zembla
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
4.0
I enjoyed this quite a bit. Wells Tower's Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned isn't the most sophisticated collection of short stories I've ever read, but it contains a great deal of humour and pathos.
There is certainly a theme I've been noticing in masculine American fiction of impotence. But, I think, Tower is much more successful than, say, D'Ambrosio in creating nuanced, complicated characters. The men in his stories confront the absurdity of life with more humour and insight than expected. When at the end of "The Brown Coast," for instance, Bob Munroe intends to throw the sea cucumber at a happy couple on a boat but the wind throws it off course, we are reminded of Bob's shortcomings and his comic impotence.
For the most part, these tragicomic stories are pretty consistent. Only "On the Show" stuck out to me as sort of underdeveloped.
The one thing that I appreciate most about these stories is that Tower is a genuinely quality writer. His sentences are usually wonderful and, even when a story feels familiar, his language feels inventive.
Yeah. Good stuff. Fun.
3.5 All-Male Mountain Retreats out of 5
There is certainly a theme I've been noticing in masculine American fiction of impotence. But, I think, Tower is much more successful than, say, D'Ambrosio in creating nuanced, complicated characters. The men in his stories confront the absurdity of life with more humour and insight than expected. When at the end of "The Brown Coast," for instance, Bob Munroe intends to throw the sea cucumber at a happy couple on a boat but the wind throws it off course, we are reminded of Bob's shortcomings and his comic impotence.
For the most part, these tragicomic stories are pretty consistent. Only "On the Show" stuck out to me as sort of underdeveloped.
The one thing that I appreciate most about these stories is that Tower is a genuinely quality writer. His sentences are usually wonderful and, even when a story feels familiar, his language feels inventive.
Yeah. Good stuff. Fun.
3.5 All-Male Mountain Retreats out of 5