Finished Karoo yesterday morning and started on Wells Tower's Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. I'm a third of the way in and I'm noticing he's a got a pat way of ending the stories. They're stunted novels. He follows a character to a cliff, lets the reader jump off and moves on to the next. There's no Dickensian or Hardy-esque wrap-up. The modern edge, perhaps? I'm not complaining, I'd just like to see what he does with the novel form. He's an already up-and-came big cheese in the literature department. My guess is there's an echo in the back of the book jacket saying "Norton Anthology, here we come!". The echo is not wrong. Like Hardy, he isn't kind to his women. He's got male relationships down though (and he should). One theme does seem to make him unique. He's got image-centered pieces, or uses an image as a turn, but they aren't obnoxious Holy Grail symbol-allegory confections. They just are what they are - the anchor that makes sure the character falls swiftly at the abrupt end. The meat in "Retreat," the sea cucumber in "The Brown Coast," - these are the images that distract the reader from the estranged family motif that seems to unite the collection. Well, that's the style to sell creative writing. What's your project and why is it unified? It was an interesting move he made, putting the title story at the end, an almost-satire of fantasy that suddenly turned tragic, touching and relevant. It's probably what made publishers pick it up. That element of surprise - a shift in time but a maintenance of theme, an uncertain but vibrant tone that buzzes in perfectly to create surprise and ease the reader's feelings - this is what puts Wells Tower in for the win.
Speaking of pretensions: have you ever visited a shop that has you ring a bell to enter? Seriously. The door is locked until they buzz you in. Needless to say, I spent too much for little gifts. They are impressive little gifts though, from Tail of the Yak. Well worth the 5 mile round-trip walk. Plus I got so jealous looking at the grad student housing for UC Berkeley.
