Go to the Widow-Maker (107 page)

Jones and his wife returned to the United States in the mid 1970s, settling in Sagaponack, New York. There Jones began
Whistle
, the final volume in his World War II trilogy, which was left unfinished at the time of his death. However, he had left extensive notes for novelist and longtime editor of
Harper’s Magazine
Willie Morris, who completed the last three chapters after Jones’s death in 1977. The book was published in 1978.

A young Jones, riding his bike in 1925.

Jones and his sister, Mary Ann, nicknamed “Tink.”

A fifteen-year-old Jones, in 1936.

Jones at the trailer camp where he worked while writing
From Here to Eternity
in the late 1940s.

Jones working in the room where he wrote the majority of
From Here to Eternity
. The room was built specifically for Jones by a family friend in Robinson, Illinois.

Jones in 1951, around the publication of
From Here to Eternity
.

James and Gloria Jones on their wedding day in Haiti, February 1957.

Newlyweds Jones and Gloria, still in Haiti. The couple stayed at the Hotel Oloffson in Port-au-Prince.

The cast of the film
From Here to Eternity
in Hawaii. Back row, left to right: Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra, Deborah Kerr, and Burt Lancaster. The movie was released in 1953 and won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Jones with fellow National Book Award winners Marianne Moore, Rachel Carson, and John Mason Brown at the Hotel Commodor in New York City.

Jones with his son, Jamie, and daughter, Kaylie, in 1966. The family was visiting Skiathos, Greece, where Jones had bought a piece of land in hopes of building a house—before ultimately deciding that the area was too quiet.

Jones at Florida International University in Miami, where he taught fiction writing during the 1974—1975 school year.

With a special thanks to Clem Wood and to Carleton Mitchell for serious help on sailing data;

To my marvelous secretary Kathryn Weissberger for her devotion to the project and her great help in all the mundane things;

And to Monsieur Philippe Diolé, whom I have never met, but whose remark that “more of our serious writers should look into this new undersea world” gave me the whole idea in the first place.