Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower

It is nearly one o’clock, the hour that your mother comes home for lunch. You do not want to be alone in the house with your stepfather. It still angers you that he has sent you down the driveway on your sick day, your special day of rest. You take a dozen steps, and then a plan suggests itself. Very carefully, you litter the mail in a haphazard fan on the driveway gravel so that it looks as though it were dumped there suddenly. You ease yourself down into a tire rut, splaying your arms and legs in the attitude of someone stricken by a fainting spell. When your mother’s car swings into the drive, she will find you there. She may have to stand on the brakes to keep from running you over, but you are far enough up the driveway that you don’t think she could hit you by mistake. She’ll come to you crying and concerned. You’ll let her coax it out of you, the story of how your stepfather made you get the mail.

Above is an excerpt from the story "Leopard", a story unique in Tower's collection of short stories, being the only one in second person. But there is something here that runs throughout the book: a desperation in each of the protagonists to make something happen for him or herself. They all find themselves desperate enough for a change of some sort that they are willing to do things that are often harmful to themselves. The protagonist in "Leopard" is so angry at his stepfather that he is willing to put his life in danger to make a point. Another protagonist runs away to become a carnie. Another allows a much older man to kiss her just to shun her condescending cousin. There is a sort of very human desperation in all of these characters. And these desperations, at least as far as I'm concerned, all ring true.
Another strain related to this desperation running through the stories is violence. This is most apparent in the title story, which is about a group of vikings who go pillaging under the pretext of revenge when really it's because some of them are bored. In fact, this is a perfect blend of the desperation and the violence found throughout. (One of the most gory and fascinating things I've ever read happens in this story--I won't ruin it).
Finally, the writing itself in these stories is just first-rate. Tower has some metaphors and similes that are just astounding, and often equal parts hilarious and disturbing (see the description of the baby bird in "Wild America"). The man has a large vocabulary and he knows how to use it. I would say that while the content of his stories in this collection call to mind Hemingway and Carver, the prose seems akin to the late great John Updike. A very restrained Updike. While Updike would unleash a beautiful description of a smell or an idea, allowing it to go on in paragraph long sentences, Tower keeps it compact. But the rhythms and syntax remind me of Updike. This is Tower's first book, but you wouldn't know it by his prose--this is mature stuff.
If you can't tell by the fact that I have called him a sort of combination of Hemingway, Carver, and Updike (I'm certainly not the first to compare him to the first two, but I haven't read anyone comparing him to Updike, which may mean that I'm just wrong), I highly recommend this collection. A few of the stories have I'm-not-exactly-sure-what-to-think endings, but they are never truly unsatisfying. The majority, however, are so transparently yet complexly crafted, that by the time the end of even the first read comes, you know that you've read something special and you wouldn't change a word. Even reviewing this book at all feels superfluous, as there is all sorts of buzz about it in the literary world right now, but I just can't contain it. This book is grade-A stuff.