Whistle [Paperback]

Four World War II infantrymen recover at an army hospital, and struggle to readjust to the home front, in thisNew York Times–bestselling novel.
 

At the end of a long journey across the Pacific, a ship catches sight of California. On board are hundreds of injured soldiers, survivors of the American infantry’s battle to wrest the South Seas from the Japanese Empire. As the men on deck cheer their imminent return to their families, wives, and favorite girls, four stay below, unable to join in the celebration. These men are broken by war and haunted by what they learned there of the savagery of mankind. As they convalesce in a hospital in Memphis, the pain of that knowledge will torment them far worse than any wound.

 

The third of James Jones’s epics based on his life in the army, this posthumously published novel draws on his own experiences to depict the horrors of war and their persistence even after the jungle is left behind.

 

“Jones was a powerful naturalistic chronicler of certain essential realities of warfare and of the responses of men at war.” —The New York Times Book Review

 

“Few men write as effectively about the American army as James Jones.” —Newsweek