Retired Chapel Hill High teacher Pat Brooks got a shock recently when she overheard some young people talking about a great writer from here who was coming back to speak at an Orange County Literacy Council fundraiser.
“They said, ‘He’s wonderful. He writes these short stories. You gotta go online and find out about it,’” she recalls. “I did. And I thought, ‘My gosh. I had this kid in English class.’ He was serious, but also had an expression that showed readiness for humor.”
And now Wells Tower, 37, has moved back to the place where he can run into former teachers (he graduated from CHHS in 1991), those who played with him at the Cat’s Cradle and Local 506 in his post-high school punk band Hellbender and who watched his career as a writer blossom from afar – he left as a young adult to attend college at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, later getting an MFA from Columbia.
His first book was published last year – Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned – and is a critical darling now in its fifth printing. Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times named it one of the top 10 books of 2009. “He’s written one of the best collections of short stories that’s come out in some time,” says Daniel Wallace, the Chapel Hill author of Big Fish. Tower, Wallace notes, is one of those rare writers who was raised here, rather than the throng of them who have migrated to the area.
American lives
Tower’s stories document the mediocre parts of the American experience, tales set amid carnival rides in Florida, drab basement apartments and the mountains of Maine. His characters – many of them men with an affinity for carpentry – seek closeness with others, but often don’t find it.
I met with Tower recently at Bowbarr, one of his favorite hangouts, a place on Rosemary Street that looks like an old video arcade. It was opened this spring by one of his former band buddies, John Bowman, and his wife, Amanda Barr (Tower actually became an ordained minister online and married the couple at their Chapel Hill home in 2006; for his part, he remains unmarried.).
He’s decided to make Chapel Hill his home base between fellowships, magazine writing assignments and book tours simply because he likes it here. He speaks of its stunning rural vistas and its affordability compared to New York. He moved back in December from Brooklyn, temporarily residing in Hillsborough. He owns a house off Jones Ferry Road, one that he rents out now, but plans to move into permanently this year.
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