ISBN: 0974565245

Following in Stephen King's Footsteps

There is nothing like a collection of stories for reading before a fire.  They're entertaining.  You can pick and choose according to your mood. And it's easy to put the book down when your bedtime hour comes 'round.

Only that's not quite how it works with Losing Patience, a first book by Joyce Faulkner.  You won't want to put it down.  The lure of the next chapter is as potent as if the book were a novel.   

Faulkner's writing reminds me of Stephen King's.  She can write but she doesn't flaunt the fact.  She flirts with psychological deviants, upsetting times, and towns that feel as twisted as the characters themselves. Somehow, they all feel believable--as if you've known them somewhere, sometime before. 

Some are tidy short stories with endings like Poe's. However, I believe Faulkner is at her best when she writes stories that don't go anywhere but are affecting because they parallel life, stories like my favorite, "Just Hold Me." This is a gentle but tragic narrative set in 1967 about one night in the life of a returning Vietnam Vet named Gary.  Stephen King has been done by Stephen King.  And though he's wholly entertaining, Joyce Faulkner may just have him beaten for this one fine heart-beat of a story.   

I'd call that darn near the finest of beginnings.  I'm looking forward to more from this emerging author. I'll read anything she writes.  I can only hope she'll let "Just Hold Me" point the way to her future.