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 frontAt 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 MailerJames 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and Other Stories, The Merry Month of May, A Touch of Danger, Whistle, and To the End of the War-a book of previously unpublished fiction.