Some Came Running

Some Came Running is a novel by James Jones, published in 1957. This was Jones' second published novel, following his award-winning debut From Here to Eternity. It is the story of a war veteran with literary aspirations who returns in 1948 to his hometown of Parkman, Indiana, after a failed writing career. It was a thinly disguised autobiographical novel of Jones's experiences in his hometown of Robinson, Illinois immediately after returning from World War II.

A film version starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine and Martha Hyer (filmed on location in historic Madison, Indiana) was nominated for five Academy Awards.

Plot

Dave Hirsh is a cynical Army veteran who winds up in his hometown of Parkman after being put on a bus in Chicago while intoxicated. Ginny Moorehead, a woman of seemingly loose morals and poor education, has taken the same bus.

Hirsh had left Parkman 16 years before when his older brother Frank placed him in a charity boarding school, and is still embittered. Frank has since married well, inherited a jewelry business from the father of his wife Agnes, and made their social status his highest priority. Dave's return threatens this, so Frank makes a fruitless stab at arranging respectability, introducing him to his friend Professor French and his daughter Gwen, a schoolteacher.