The New Scheme
Issue 7 (Winter 2002/2003)
The Ice Cream Headache, And Other Stories
James Jones
I feel kind of humbled reviewing this, considering this author also wrote The Thin Red Line, and From Here to Eternity, but I guess it's okay since I only have good things to say about the book. This is collection of short stories spanning from the years after World War II up until the Sixties. This includes time both before and after he wrote the books that made him famous. In his introduction, he includes some wonderfully bitter remarks about the responses potential publishers gave him before and after he had made his name. What is also fun about this book, especially for aspiring writers is that it gives you a chance to see his writing mature as he gets older. He also includes intro explanations to each story about the circumstances and reasons he wrote each story, again providing good insight for anyone interested in pursuing writing. If I had to describe his style, I would compare him to Hemingway, often dry yet engaging with a lot of references to war and life after war. He is definitely old school (don't come looking for any Dave Eggers or Rick Moody arty-ness here), but Jones is certainly not conservative. Half of his reason for releasing this collection was that magazines won’t publish anything dealing with sexuality at all. I would recommend this book because it's just plain good engaging writing. But it's also interesting culturally because of the time it was written, as well as being a good window for aspiring writers. (Review by Dave)