In this first collection, Pushcart Prize winner Wells Tower presents realistic though slightly bizarre stories with dark comic twists. In the first story “Brown Coast” a man destroys his marriage by having an affair; he also gets fired from his building job—steps must be cut an even six inches apart. Economic realities force him into a kind of exile in downstate Florida at his uncle’s house (once owned jointly by his dead father). His job is to clean and repair it. The town has no decent beach, but to unwind, Bob takes buckets and pots down to the stink grass by the sea and captures beautiful fish and other sea life from the tidal pool. While trying to turn his life around, he meets kooky neighbors who spontaneously skinny dip with him. Tower writes about expected masculine exploits such as drinking, hunting, and building cabins, but also surprises the reader with close and sensitive looks (despite cursing and name-calling) at a sibling relationship in the story “Retreat” and a father and son relationship conflicted by his dad’s dementia in “Executors of Important Energies.” This is a man’s world depicted from a man’s point of view, but captured so vividly that anyone will relate to the protagonists and their conflicts. In Tower’s stories the world is messy and awful and incomplete but occasionally blessed with fleeting moments of beauty and connection to others.
What’s fun about Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is the author’s wide knowledge of the world. He writes about carpentry, chess, carnivals and invention with the ease of someone who has gotten his facts from long experience. Tower’s writing is muscular and vivid. He has an eye for details and describes location and characters so that you feel as though you are in the room with him. Every page offers surprises. For those who love the stories of Richard Ford and Tobias Wolff, this collection will not only entertain, but will pull you into vastly different worlds than you experience daily, and let you know them from the inside.
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