Ice-Cream Headache

Short stories by the award-winning author of From Here to Eternity:"One of the significant writers of his generation" (The New York Times Book Review).

In his introduction to this collection of sharply crafted short stories, James Jones compares novel writing to a long-term, chronic illness. Writing short stories, he says, is like a brief, intense fever: the kind that can kill or disappear in a matter of days. Although best known for epic war novels such as From Here to Eternity and The Thin Red Line, Jones also wrote short stories, and the ones in this volume burn with deadly intensity.

Besides the expected stories of the soldier's life, Jones gives us something surprising: five stories of childhood, tender and horrifying at the same time, inspired by his early life in the Depression-stricken Midwest. They and the other shorts in this volume are accompanied by author's notes, which supplement Jones's introduction, and a preface by his daughter, Kaylie Jones.