The Colony is an account of that special, pivotal time in a person's life when innocence is lost and another road taken. John Bowers joins an oddball group of young men trying to become writers in Marshall, Illinois, under the guidance of Lowney T. Handy, the only female on the premises. She is a messianic married woman who mentored and supported a young James Jones while he wrote From Here to Eternity and who still holds him under her spell. Bowers leaves the love of his life in Tennessee, the unforgettable Juanita, and arrives at the Colony. He gets a barracks-like room, a cot and a desk on...