Text by Michael Mullen, Professor of English, Vincennes (IN) University

Go to the Widow-Maker was the first book Jones published after his move to Delacorte. He left Scribner's not because of the way he was treated there, but because, as Burroughs Mitchell said, "Several publishers approached him with offers that he turned down, and finally Dell-Delacorte made an offer that he felt he could not decline."

In Widow-Maker, Jones returned to one of the major themes of Some Came Running: the sexual maladjustment of the American male. Jones's dedication to his daughter Kaylie--"with the information that the reason her father never tried to write about a great love story before was because he had never experienced one until he met her mother"--suggests another of Jones's aims in the novel. Most critics felt Jones failed in his attempt to write a great love story, dismissing Widow-Maker as merely a money-maker. With the exception of Some Came Running, this was Jones's most poorly received novel. Josh Greenfeld, in The New York Times Book Review, said, "It will probably bear the dubious distinction of being the worst book by a good writer to be published this year."

A blurb by Maxwell Geismar in the Publishers' Weekly advertisement when the book was published began, "Go to the Widow-Maker demonstrates James Jones' ability to create a remarkable novel of ordinary civilian life...." Most critics disagreed with that, arguing instead that Jones wrote best about the military and that he faltered when he moved his characters from army life to civilian life.