Writers on the Record: Wells Tower

Start: 02/11/2010 6:00 pm

Wells Tower will discuss his debut collection of short stories, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned.

Viking marauders descend on a much-plundered island, hoping some mayhem will shake off the winter blahs. A man is booted out of his home after his wife discovers that the print of a bare foot on the inside of his windshield doesn’t match her own. Teenage cousins, drugged by summer, meet with a reckoning in the woods. A boy runs off to the carnival after his stepfather bites him in a brawl.

In the stories of Wells Tower, families fall apart and messily try to reassemble themselves. His version of America is touched with the seamy splendor of the dropout, the misfit: failed inventors, boozy dreamers, hapless fathers, wayward sons. Combining electric prose with savage wit, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is a major debut, announcing a voice we have not heard before.

The free, hour-long interview is a partnership between the Chicago Public Library and 98.7WFMT radio, with a taping at 6:00 p.m. in the Cindy Pritzker Auditorium at the Harold Washington Library Center, 400 S. State Street. The interview will be broadcast at noon on Sunday, February 14th. The Seminary Co-Op Bookstores sells books at the event, which is underwritten by Graver Capital Management LLC. The events are free, no reservations required, with seating on a first-come basis.

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