Wells Tower

One of our favorite books of 2009. This story collection brings to mind a comforting blend of two short story masters — Raymond Carver, with his impeccable and unsettling portrayals of deceptively mundane situations, and Barry Hannah, whose wildly creative sentences convey the world in previously unseen shades. Tower has effectively delivered stories that combine these two genius traits without being derivative or overzealous.

The lives depicted in Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned are not pretty, nor are they morose or saddled with stylized gloom. The stories are driven by the humor in uncomfortable situations, delivered without judgment or tidy conclusions. They are sleek, without a wasted word, and move with welcome tics and surprises of language. The characters are the sort you'll follow out of morbid curiosity, like an odd stranger spied in public and wondered about in voyeuristic daydreams. Good stories like these let you follow them home from the safety of the static page.