The Virtues of Being a Pessimist: The Life and Works of James Jones with Keith Reddin

James Jones, the author of the huge bestseller FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (and the award winning film), was the image of the hard drinking, two fisted chronicler of war and combat. But the body of his other work, as well as his friendships with fellow East End writers, make for a surprising and fascinating life story. The talk will examine his fiction and his complicated relationships. Jones, a long-time resident of Bridgehampton and Southampton, a regular at Bobby Vann's and mentor to many important writers, was a larger than life force in American Post War literature.

Keith Reddin (Playwright) is a resident of East Hampton, with a decades long connection with the East End arts scene. His plays include Life and Limb, Rum and Coke, Big Time, Nebraska, Life During Wartime, Brutality of Fact, Almost Blue, All the Rage, But Not For Me, Frame 312, Human Error, The Missionary Position, Acquainted with the Night, Pierre. Adaptations include Black Snow, The Imaginary Invalid, Heaven’s My Destination, the one acts of Strindberg and Rear Window. His work has been produced at Manhattan Theater Club, Playwrights Horizons, Atlantic Theater Company, New York Shakespeare Festival,  Goodman Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Alley Theater, Alliance Theater, American Repertory Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre and Berkeley Repertory Theatre, as well as in London, Berlin, and Tel Aviv. He has also written for film and television, as well as being a professor of playwriting at  Columbia University, New York University and the New School. Mr. Reddin has a deep love of contemporary American literature.