Everything ravaged, everything burned by Wells Tower

More short stories, but read about six months ago ... all I can remember is sharp writing of displaced Americana, disturbing vignettes of children being abused at fun fairs by strange men, mean stepfathers in dry, arid landscapes finished off with a very odd and ultimately unreadable story about Vikings. Yes, Vikings. A very good debut, but many of these stories felt like they had bigger narratives - like Tower's was trying to squish a tennis ball into a toaster (bad analogy, but it doesn't fit, does it?) I wonder, did this collection start as a novel and become a collection of small ones? Among authors, are short stories like primary school and full lengths their high school equivalent? Do short story writers have little man syndrome? It didn't surprise me to find that since this was published in 2009 that Tower has gone on to write extensive features for GQ magazine, his style seemingly more at ease with this form of reportage. Tower's sentences were sparse but dead on in their accuracy of their target, and each page creaked like an old rocking chair on a porch, until the end came, like dust.