Star-Crossed Lovers: James Jones, Lowney Handy, and the Birth of From Here to Eternity

By: M. J. Moore

Sign Up Now! Already a Member? Log In
You must be logged into Bookshare to access this title. Learn about membership options, or view our freely available titles.

Synopsis: From Lowney Handy's scandalous small-town open marriage to author James Jones's extraordinary apprenticeship with Maxwell Perkins (legendary editor of Hemingway and Fitzgerald), Star-Crossed Lovers illuminates an unforgettable love story. She was an eccentric small-town self-taught rebel, driven by creative zeal and a non-conformist streak. He was a distressed ex-GI (flat broke, without prospects, damaged by war), 17 years younger than she, consumed by visions of a writer's life. Lowney and her husband invited Jones to live and write at their home in Robinson, Illinois. Many years of struggle ensued. In the end, Jones's From Here to Eternity won the National Book Award and profoundly transformed American literature. The 1953 film adaptation swept the Academy Awards in 1954. Expanding their shared vision of life, the Handys and Jones incorporated a unique writers' colony in 1951 that was funded mostly by Jones's Eternity royalties. This is their odyssey of love, passion, and conflict, which remains exceptional in literary history.