James Jones Books In Order

From Here to Eternity

Diamond Head, Hawaii, 1941. Pvt. Robert E. Lee Prewitt is a champion welterweight and a fine bugler. But when he refuses to join the company’s boxing team, he gets ‘the treatment’ that may break him or kill him. First Sgt. Milton Anthony Warden knows how to soldier better than almost anyone, yet he’s risking his career to have an affair with the commanding officer’s wife. Both Warden and Prewitt are bound by a common bond: the Army is their heart and blood…
and, possibly, their death. In this magnificent but brutal classic of a soldier’s life, James Jones portrays the courage, violence and passions of men and women who live by unspoken codes and with unutterable despair…
in the most important American novel to come out of World War II, a masterpiece that captures as no ther the honor and savagery of men. From the Paperback edition.

The Thin Red Line

4 cassettes / 6 hoursRead by critically acclaimed actor Joe Mantegna’…
a powerful, moving novel that probes the heart of man’s most heartless activity war.’ Clay Gowran in the Chicago Sunday Tribune ‘I also learned that in spite of all the training you get and precautions you take to keepyourself alive, its largely a matter of luck that decided whether or not you get killed. Itdoesn’t make any difference who you are, how tough you are, how nice a guy you mightbe, or how much you may know, if you happen to be at a certain spot at a certain time,you get it.’ James Jones, letter to his brother, Jeff Jones, from Guadalcanal, January 28,1943 ‘So this is Guadalcanal,’ a man at the rail said, and spat tobacco juice over the side.’What the f’ you think it was? F’ing Tahiti?’These are the men of C for Charlie Company ‘Mad’ 1st/Sgt. Eddie Welsh, S/Sgt. Don Doll, Pvt. John Bell, Capt. James stein, Cpl. Fife, and dozens more just like them infantrymen in ‘this man’s army’ who are about to land grim and white faced on an atollin the Pacific called Guadalcanal. This is their story, a shatteringly realistic walk into hell and back. In the days ahead some well earn medals; others will do anything they can to get evacuated before they land in a muddy grave. But they will all discover The Thin Red Line that divided the sane from the mad…
and the living from the dead . . in this unforgettable, brutal portrait that captures for all time the total experience of men at war.

Whistle

The third novel in Jones’s classic World War II trilogy: a moving story of four World War II infantrymen coping with the difficulties of recovering at an army hospital and learning to readjust to the home front At the end of a long journey across the Pacific, a ship catches sight of California. On board are hundreds of injured soldiers, survivors of the American infantry s battle to wrest the South Seas from the Japanese Empire. As the men on deck cheer their imminent return to their families, wives, and favorite girls, four stay below, unable to join in the celebration. These men are broken by war and haunted by what they learned there of the savagery of mankind. As they convalesce in a hospital in Memphis, the pain of that knowledge will torment them far worse than any wound. The third of James Jones s epics based on his life in the army, this posthumously published novel draws on his own experiences to depict the horrors of war and their persistence even after the jungle is left behind. Jones was a powerful naturalistic chronicler of certain essential realities of warfare and of the responses of men at war. The New York Times Book Review Few men write as effectively about the American army as James Jones. Newsweek The only one of my contemporaries who I felt had more talent than myself was James Jones. And he has also been the only writer of any time for whom I felt any love. Norman Mailer James Jones 1921 1977 was one of the most accomplished American authors of the World War II generation. He served in the U.S. Army from 1939 to 1944, and was present at the attack on Pearl Harbor as well as the battle for Guadalcanal, where he was decorated with a purple heart and bronze star. Jones s experiences informed his epic novels From Here to Eternity and The Thin Red Line. His other works include Some Came Running, The Pistol, Go to the Widow Maker, The Ice Cream Headache and Other Stories, The Merry Month of May, A Touch of Danger, Whistle, and To the End of the War a book of previously unpublished fiction.

The Pistol

As bombs begin to fall on Pearl Harbor, nineteen year old PFC Richard Mask is wearing a pistol, a . 45 caliber automatic that makes him feel connected to the army of the Wild West and Custer’s Cavalry. In the chaos of his first days and weeks of the war, as Mask and his company move from Schofield Barracks to the beaches of Oahu, then to a remote mountain pass, a struggle over The Pistol dominates this novella’s action, providing the pathos and savagery of the story.

The Merry Month of May

Paris. May. 1968. This is the Paris of the barricaded boulevards; of rebelling students’ strongholds; of the literati; the sexual anarchists; the leftists written chillingly of a time in French history closely paralleling what America went through in the late 1960s. As the Revolution sweeps across Paris, the reader sees, feels, smells, and fears all the turmoil that was the May revolt, the frightening social quicksand of 1968.

The Ice-Cream Headache

From Here to Eternity and The Thin Red Line, both wartime novels and major motion pictures, established Jones as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. For this first and only collection of his stories out of print for more than 15 years, arranged chronologically, James Jones wrote, in addition to a general introduction, individual and very personal prefatory remarks that illuminate his development as a writer over 20 years, beginning in 1947. The 13 penetratingly sensitive, remarkably varied stories are about men, women, and children in circumstances ranging from war to marriage to childhood to courtship. Each story is distinguished by the classical simplicity, emotional resonance, and lasting impact that is the hallmark of the great short story writer. Brand new preface by the author’s daughter, Kaylie Jones. The James Jones Literary Society will participate in the promotion of this book.

‘Superbly realized stories…
Personal, vigorous, meaningful.’ Library Journal

‘We feel the impact of Jones s vitality. He is masculine, uninhibited, not abashed by whatever he uncovers of human weakness and sexuality.’ Chicago Sun Times

‘The thirteen stories are anything but dated…
a compact social history of what it was like for Mr. Jones s generation to grow up, go to war, marry, and generally, to become people in America.’ The Nation

James Jones 1921 1977 became internationally famous with his first novel, From Here to Eternity, a classic portrayal of Army life in WWII, which won the National Book Award. Over the next 25 years, he wrote 10 more books, both fiction and non fiction.

Kaylie Jones, daughter of James Jones, is the author of four novels, including A Soldier s Daughter Never Cries also a major film and Celeste Ascending.