Set in 1941, the novel focuses on several members of a U.S. Army infantry company stationed in Hawaii in the months leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
[3] After viewing the 1953 film adaptation, company member Joseph A. Maggio sued Jones and his publishers and Columbia Pictures, claiming his character had been defamed.
[6] From Here to Eternity won the National Book Award[7] and was named one of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th century by the Modern Library Board.
[8] The book was later made into an Academy Award–winning film starring Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed, Frank Sinatra, and Ernest Borgnine as well as two television adaptations and a stage musical.
In February 1941, Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt, nicknamed "Prew", reports to his new posting at G Company, a US Army infantry unit stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii.
"The Treatment" is a daily hazing ritual in which Prew is constantly singled out for extra drill exercises, unwarranted punishments, and undesirable work assignments in hopes of breaking him down through exhaustion.
Warden finds out that Karen's promiscuous behavior is due to her husband's cheating and giving her gonorrhea years after their marriage, forcing her to have a hysterectomy as part of the cure.
Due to lesser pay and lack of perspectives for their relationship, Prew has given up on his local girlfried Violet, who was of japanese-hawaiian descent.
At a brothel catering to servicemen, Prew meets Lorene, a white american prostitute whose real name is actually Alma Schmidt.
Prew schemes to be transferred into Number Two by committing an infraction and then being beaten and then spending time in the "Black Hole", a dark solitary confinement cell where prisoners are fed minimal bread and water rations.
Warden bids a farewell to Karen since he will be involved in combat in World War II, and she is returning to the mainland United States.
On the ship leaving Hawaii, Karen meets a girl who says that she was an executive secretary on the island and that her fiancé, named Robert E. Lee Prewitt and from "an old Virginia family", was a bomber pilot killed in the attack on Hickam Field who posthumously received the Silver Star.
In Whistle (1978), analogous characters again reappear named Sergeant Mart Winch, Bobby Prell, and Johnny "Mother" Strange.
In 2009, the author's daughter, Kaylie Jones, revealed that her father had been compelled to make a number of pre-publication cuts, removing some expletives and some gay sex passages.
As the film toned down the strong language used in the book, it was suggested that sales may have been partly influenced by people wanting to find out "what words James used.
[8] Joan Didion was a great admirer of From Here to Eternity and discussed its role in shaping her perceptions of Hawaii in her essay "In the Islands", included in her 1979 book The White Album.
From Here to Eternity was adapted as a 1953 film of the same name directed by Fred Zinnemann and produced by Buddy Adler, starring Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in the famous scene where they embrace and kiss in the surf of the beach.