Title: Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned
Author: Wells Tower
First published January 1, 2009
256 pages, Hardcover
ISBN: 9780374292195 (ISBN10: 0374292191)
Rating: 3.87
Overview
In the debut collection of Wells Tower, readers are taken on a wild and unexpected journey. From the shores of a much-plundered island where Viking marauders wreak havoc to the deep woods where teenage cousins face a reckoning, Tower’s stories explore the messy and complicated nature of family relationships.
Failed inventors, boozy dreamers, and wayward sons populate his version of America, where the misfits and dropouts thrive. With electric prose and savage wit, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned announces the arrival of a major new voice in American literature.
About the Author
Wells Tower has written both short stories and journalism that have been featured in various well-known publications, including The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and The Paris Review, to name a few. He has been recognized for his work with two Pushcart Prizes and the Plimpton Prize from The Paris Review.
In 2010, he was named as one of The New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 promising young writers. When he’s not writing, he splits his time between Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Brooklyn, New York.
Editoral Review
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is a collection of short stories written by Wells Tower and published on January 1, 2009. Tower is an American author and journalist known for his ability to craft immersive, evocative worlds with strikingly poetic prose.
The book primarily consists of stories set in coastal New England and Scandinavia, exploring themes of masculinity, violence, and personal identity. The stories in Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned vary widely in terms of tone and content, but they are all united by Tower’s signature attention to detail and his keen sense of character.
The book kicks off with a story called “The Brown Coast,” about a man who returns to his seaside hometown to confront his troubled past. From there, readers are taken on a journey that includes a Viking raid, a group of firefighters trying to save a burning apartment building, and a father-son relationship strained by addiction and betrayal.
At its core, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is a meditation on the ways in which people are shaped by their environments and their relationships. Tower is particularly skilled at exploring the internal lives of his characters, showing how their struggles and desires are often at odds with the expectations of society.
He is also unafraid to tackle difficult subjects, including addiction, mental illness, and the lingering effects of trauma. In terms of style, Tower’s writing is both poetic and precise.
He has a gift for creating vivid imagery and sensory details that put the reader right into the action. At the same time, his prose is always careful and deliberate, never succumbing to excessive ornamentation or flourish.
This makes for a reading experience that is both immersive and intellectually stimulating. Of course, as with any work of literature, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is not without its flaws.
Some readers may find the collection to be too bleak or too focused on suffering and pain. Additionally, while the stories are all thematically linked, there is not always a clear sense of narrative coherence or progression.
However, these critiques are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, and overall, the book is a stunning achievement. Readers who enjoy character-driven stories with an emphasis on introspection and atmosphere will likely find a lot to love in Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned.
Additionally, those interested in exploring themes of toxic masculinity and societal expectations may find the book particularly resonant. Ultimately, this is a work of literature that is sure to provoke thought and discussion long after the final page has been turned.
Based on its stunning prose, complex characters, and thought-provoking themes, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned deserves a score of 4.5 out of 5 stars. While not perfect, it is a deeply engaging and rewarding reading experience that is sure to leave a lasting impression on those who give it a chance.
