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Interviews | January 3, 2012

Jill Owens: IMG Naomi Benaron: The Powells.com Interview

1 comment By Jill Owens

Naomi BenaronRunning the Rift is the most recent winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, as awarded by Barbara Kingsolver. It's also an... Continue »
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    Running the Rift

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eBook editions

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

by Wells Tower

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned Cover

ISBN13: 9780312429294
ISBN10: 0312429290
Condition: Standard
All Product Details

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Awards

Staff Top 5s 2010 2010 Powell's Staff Top 5s
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Staff Pick

The long-awaited debut collection by Wells Tower does not disappoint. Full of masterful tales, brilliant humor, and soul-shattering pathos, Tower's work should place him at the forefront of American storytellers.
Recommended by Kevin Sampsell, Powell's City of Books

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 & Reviews

Publisher 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 car's 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. Wells Tower's version of America is touched with the seamy splendor of the dropout, the misfit: failed inventors, boozy dreamers, hapless fathers, wayward sons. With electric prose and savage wit, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is a profound new collection of stories.

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:

"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

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:

"This arresting debut collection of stories decisively establishes Mr. Tower as a writer of uncommon talent." The New York Times
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Video

About the Author

Wells 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.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 5 comments:
susang, January 4, 2012 (view all comments by susang)
Wonderful stories.
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Casey Woodworth, May 9, 2011 (view all comments by Casey Woodworth)
I cannot recommend this collection highly enough. Tower has such a way with words that you end up loving characters you should be hating. That's talent! These stories are lovely, colorful, dark, and memorable. There are moments in them I will remember forever. Hoping that Tower writes a full-length novel soon, because I am eager to see what he will do with a higher word count.
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mickpro, January 5, 2011 (view all comments by mickpro)
Wells Towers characters live in a world that I am only somewhat familiar with, but I'd welcome being there, if only for a short time. The stories are wild, wonderful and truly original.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780312429294
Author:
Tower, Wells
Publisher:
Picador USA
Subject:
Short Stories (single author)
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Copyright:
2010
Edition Description:
Trade Paper
Publication Date:
20100231
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
256
Dimensions:
7.92 x 6.1 x 0.675 in
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Related Aisles

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned Used Trade Paper
0 stars - 0 reviews
$7.50 In Stock
Product details 256 pages Picador USA - English 9780312429294 Reviews:
"Staff Pick" by ,

The long-awaited debut collection by Wells Tower does not disappoint. Full of masterful tales, brilliant humor, and soul-shattering pathos, Tower's work should place him at the forefront of American storytellers.

by Kevin Sampsell
"Review A Day" by , "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." (read the entire New York review of Books)
"Review" by , "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."
"Review" by , "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."
"Review" by , "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" by , "This arresting debut collection of stories decisively establishes Mr. Tower as a writer of uncommon talent."
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