Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

Wells Tower

The characters in this collection of short stories are often damaged and neglected but the author uses black humour to pin down their drifting and offer us a snapshot of their peculiar situations. I found the stories an odd balance of mundane and remarkable and I loved the endings that left so many possibilities just within reach.

Extract
The loveliness of the day was enough to knock you down. Swallows rioted about the calm green lid of the lake. Birch trees gleamed like filaments among the dark evergreens. No planes disturbed the sky. I felt dead to it, though I did take a kind of comfort that all of this beauty was out here, persisting like made, whether you hearkened to it or not.
Parallels
  • Anything by Raymond Carver
  • Susan's House - the song (by the Eels)
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Explicit sexual content