Jones, James (1921–77), Illinois‐born author, served in the Pacific with the army (1939–44), his experiences furnishing background for
From Here to Eternity (1951), a naturalistic novel about army life in Hawaii on the eve of the Pearl Harbor attack. His later fiction includes
Some Came Running (1957), a long, panoramic novel set in a Midwestern town between World War II and the Korean War;
The Pistol (1959), a novella about an army private who accidentally obtains a pistol that comes to be his symbol of safety in war;
The Thin Red Line (1962), a novel about a U.S. infantry company on Guadalcanal in 1942–43, a sequel to his first novel;
Go to the Widow‐Maker (1967), presenting a successful playwright's quest for manhood through his experiences in learning to skin‐dive;
The Merry Month of May (1971), depicting crises, personal and political, of an American family in Paris during the riots of May 1968;
A Touch of Danger (1973), a detective tale set on a Greek island; and
Whistle (1978), the final volume of Jones's World War II trilogy, depicting the difficulties four wounded soldiers have in adjusting to civilian life.
The Ice‐Cream Headache (1968) collects stories and a novella, and
Viet Journal (1974) describes his trip to Vietnam in 1973. His collected letters were gathered under the title
To Reach Eternity (1989).
