John Faulkner (author) - Writing Career

Writing Career

Faulkner's fascination with the rural farmers of Beat Two formed the basis for his writings. One of his early works is a historical essay, The Mississippi Hill Country. His first novel, titled Beat Six, however, remained unpublished for several decades.

His first published novel, Men Working (1941), is a satirical comedy that exposes how government bureaucracy (in the form of the WPA) adversely affects the lives of a farm family who are forced to leave the land during the Depression in order to find work.

In 1942, Faulkner published Dollar Cotton, his only work set outside the hill country of Mississippi. It tells the story of Otis Town, who around the turn of the century acquires a virgin tract of Mississippi Delta and after tremendous efforts turns it into a lucrative cotton plantation, only to lose everything in the 1921 recession when the cotton market collapses.

He also published magazine stories. A number of his short stories appeared in Collier's. Faulkner's third novel, Chooky (1950), is a series of sketches about an eleven-year-old boy, who is a composite of Faulkner's two sons, Jimmy and Murry, who was himself nicknamed "Chooky."

Faulkner's next novel was published by a different publisher as an original paperback under the title Cabin Road (1951). This and his next four paperbacks are prime examples of Southwestern humor, detailing a cast of backwoods people who cannot comprehend the complexities of the 20th century. Much of the humor in these final works is bawdy, but much also derives from the absurdities resulting from the arrival of strangers in "Beat Two."

His final work was a memoir and tribute to his brother, William Faulkner, titled My Brother Bill: An Affectionate Reminiscence. Faulkner began writing the book almost immediately after William's death on July 6, 1962, and completed the manuscript shortly before his own death the following year. It details mostly childhood events from their lives.

John Faulkner died at age 61 from a stroke in Oxford, Mississippi, two weeks after he finished reading the galleys of My Brother Bill. He is interred in St. Peter's Cemetery, Oxford.