Soyos Shorts

In   Mark   SaFranko's newly  released novel "One False Step" (Soyos Books, 2023), he crafts an enthralling and emotionally charged narrative that delves deep into the complexities of marital problems. Through his vivid and descriptive storytelling, SaFranko spins a captivating and relatable tale about the complexities of relationships.  Since protagonist Clay Bowers' accident, he and his wife Alicia's marital problems which (as the reader learns as the narrative unfolds) already existed, amplify. Between the weight of marital discord, and Clay's own attempts to come to terms with an injury that left him in a wheel chair, readers are drawn into the intricate web of his struggles. SaFranko's descriptive prose skillfully paints a vivid picture of Clay's emotional journey, making it easy to empathize with his pain, even though Clay is not entirely a victim (given the fact that he committed adultery and is partially to blame for his marital problems). In t...

The British author, Graham Greene, dubbed author Patricia Highsmith “the poet of apprehension” in his introduction to her Selected Stories . Highsmith is a one of Mark SaFranko’s favorite authors, and there are haunting echoes of her sensibility in his latest novel One False Step , appearing for the first time in English (previously published in French translation). SaFranko manages to create a world that is cruel and almost claustrophobic, drawing the reader into an unsettling feeling of dread as the protagonist’s life slowly devolves and spirals toward its inevitable conclusion. One False Step is the story of Clay Bowers, a philanderer, whose wandering eye lands him into trouble when, in an instance of darkly humorous irony, he falls off a roof while ogling the lady of the house, rendering him a paraplegic. As he is recovering in the hospital, he realizes that “The thought that he might not be able to do anything (sic)…that he might only be able to lie there and think for the rest o...