|
|
|
|
||
|
HELP | |
|
  $24.00
New Hardcover
Ships in 1 to 3 days
This title in other formats:Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned: Storiesby Wells Tower
Review-a-Day (What is Review-a-Day?)"The phrase "well-crafted" suggests an unfortunate analogy between a piece of fiction and a piece of furniture. And there is a surprising amount of fiction around that is reasonably accomplished and graceful, or strikingly ornamented, or that skillfully reproduces previous successes in structure or tone and yet feels synthetic and inert — made up, in short, rather than like something that has been transcribed from a revelatory vision." Deborah Eisenberg, New York Review of Books (read the entire New York review of Books) Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments: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. Review:Wells Tower is a blindingly brilliant writer who does more than raise the bar for debut fiction: he hurls it into space. With the oversized heart of George Saunders, the demon tongue of Barry Hannah, and his very own conjuring tools that cannot here be named, Tower writes stories of aching beauty that are as crushingly funny and sad as any on the planet. Ben Marcus, author of Notable American Women and The Age of Wire and String Review:"We need books like Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned...What [Towers] portraits lack in grandeur, they compensate for in their accuracy...[The characters] live the way we Americans do." Benjamin Alsup, Esquire Review:"[An] outstanding debut collection...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. Towers 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." Publishers Weekly (starred review and Pick of the Week) Review:"The title barely hints at the scorched-earth, take-no-prisoners power of the stories." Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Review:"Towers debut story collection confirms what readers of Harpers, McSweeneys, The Paris Review, and other major publications have known for some time: Tower is a serious talent...Towers voice is honest and strange, humorous and insightful." Kevin Clouther, Booklist Review:"Outstanding...Tower has crafted a powerful and assured debut collection." Lawrence Rungren, Library Journal Review:"Wells Towers' stories are written, thrillingly, in authentic American vernacularviolent, funny, bleak, and beautiful. You need to read them, now." Michael Chabon, author of The Yiddish Policemens Union and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Review:"These are lurid, ingenious, beautiful, delicate, and very funny stories. Full of pity and terror, they are also great fun to read. Wells Tower has written a brilliant book." Benjamin Kunkel, author of Indecision Synopsis:In Tower's debut collection of stories, families fall apart and messily try to reassemble themselves in an America that is touched with the seamy splendor of the dropout, the misfit, boozy dreamers, hapless fathers, and wayward sons.
About the AuthorWells Tower's writing has appeared in Harper's Magazine, McSweeney's, The Paris Review, The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, and elsewhere. He received a Pushcart Prize and the Plimpton Discovery Prize from The Paris Review. He lives in North Carolina. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
Average customer rating based on 2 comments: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Don't Miss
