Tuesday, Dec. 08, 2009
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
Wells Tower writes remarkably raw, forceful stories about men feeling bad, doing bad things and making bad decisions. In the title story, which is almost certainly the strangest and best 30 pages you'll read this year, Tower tells the saga of a band of raiding Vikings, but he does so using contemporary language and contemporary dialogue. "Don't suppose you've got a coin hoard or anything buried out back," says a raider to a potential victim. "Jeezum crow, I wish I did have. Coin hoard, I'd really turn things around." You laugh hysterically right up to the part where you start crying.