Note: The James Jones Literary Society regrets to announce that as of June 5, 1999, Kurt Vonnegut and Willie Morris will be unable to attend the Symposium as planned.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Margot Nightingale
618 546-5034
Fax: 618 546-5141
Perhaps only the late James Jones, author of From Here to Eternity, The Thin Red Line, Some Came Running and other books, could have brought together the spectacular array of literary talents that will appearing in Southampton, NY, on June 26.
Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, William Styron, Budd Schulberg, Betty Comden, Peter Matthiessen, Willie Morris and George Plimpton, all members of the aging elite in American letters, will gather at Long Island University-Southampton to talk about their memories of Jones, their friend and colleague, and his work. Many of the authors were neighbors of Jones, who lived in the Hamptons in the 1970s, before his death in 1977 at age 55.
The day-long program will be sponsored by the James Jones Literary Society, in conjunction with the LIU-Southampton's MFA Program in Writing and a grant from the New York Council for the Huamanities.
The program will begin at 10 a.m. with addresses by Schulberg, Heller and Vonnegut. After a lunch break, Mailer and Styron will speak; and the event will conclude with a panel dicussion by Comden, Matthiesssen and Morris. Plimpton will serve as moderator/emcee.
"It will be a fairly unstructured conference centered on the reminiscences and insights of the writers and their old friend, James Jones, and his works," said Michael Lennon, a member of the board of the James Jones Literary Society. "They knew the man and they knew his books. I expect that the discussion will be far-ranging-from specific questions on a Jones short story or character to speculations about what Jones would think of the war in Kosovo. I'm sure that Jones and modern war will emerge as a key theme."
Jones is best known for his fictional insights into the experience of the common soldier in war, as exemplified by his war trilogy, From Here to Eternity, The Thin Red Line and Whistle. He also authored two non-fiction treatments of war, WWII and Viet Journal.
Several of the speakers of this World War II generation of distinguished writers on the June 26 program also made their reputations with novels based on war themes, including Mailer (The Naked and the Dead), Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse Five), and Heller (Catch 22). Styron's Sophie's Choice is drawn from a World War II Holocaust scenario.
All the participants are acclaimed authors, and most have won major writing awards. Schulberg scored a literary hit with his novel What Makes Sammy Run?, but is perhaps best know for his original story and screenplay for the 1954 film: On the Waterfront. Comden received five Tony awards for her work on book and/or lyrics for Broadway musicals. Matthiessen authored, among other works, the play "At Play in the Fields of the Lord," and the nonfiction book "The Snow Leopard."
Morris, who was perhaps Jones' best friend among the writers, authored James Jones: A Friendship (to be re-released this year); and, using Jones' notes, completed "Whistle," at the request of the author, who died with the book unfinished.
Plimpton is the author of numerous books, but is most famous as the editor of The Paris Review, the highly regarded literary journal which he founded in 1953 with Matthiessen and Styron.
Jones' work has received renewed recognition in the past year with the release of The Thin Red Line, the Terrence Malick film adapted from Jones' novel; and the Merchant Ivory movie A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries, an interpretation of the autobiographical novel of the same name written by Jones' daughter, Kaylie Jones, who teaches fiction at LIU-Southampton.
As a young Midwesterner in the peacetime Army, Jones was stationed in Honolulu when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, and he used his military experience to begin his writing career with the blockbuster novel From Here to Eternity, published in 1951. He moved to Paris in the 1960s, and wrote several novels there before returning to the U.S. and settling on Long Island with his family.
The James Jones Literary society was established in 1991 in Jones' hometown of Robinson, Illinois.
The June 26 symposium will be held in Duke Hall on the LIU-Southampton campus. The program will be free and open to the public.