Friday, April 10, 2009

Wells Tower and time off

Some time off from the book for the time being. Treated myself to breakfast out and a run to the garden center to get a load of, no shit, manure. We're prepping the veggie beds tomorrow. Planting next week probably.

So, Wells Tower . . . I know, right?

I'm still dragging myself obligingly and unimpressed through last year's savior of the critically praised/commercially successful short story collection, so I've been skeptical of the media narrative on this year's model. I read the first story in the collection the other day--I don't remember the title, something about a vulnerable antihero trying to redeem himself with a fishtank--and thought, more of the same, so what?

Better impression from the title story--"Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned." Yesterday I stumbled on a great source of online audio of authors reading their own short stories at the UK Guardian, including this story by Wells Tower. I've been looking for cheap sources of audio books to rest my eyes more, so I played this story while I cleaned up my office, which had devolved quite a bit while I cranked through draft 6 over the last several weeks. This one, I loved. Very clever anachronistic play which, for me, had the effect of bursting the bubble on a certain kind of linguistic romance/chivalry around American violence.

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