The eponymous Jim is a young, good-looking, genial, and naive water-clerk on the Patna, a cargo ship plying Asian waters. He is, we are told, "the kind of fellow you would, on the strength of his looks, leave in charge of the deck." He also harbors romantic fantasies of adventure and heroism--which are promptly scuttled one night when the ship collides with an obstacle and begins to sink. Acting on impulse, Jim jumps overboard and lands in a lifeboat,...

The music carries the harmonic sophistication of classical, the quasi-atonal sensibilities of Coltrane and an unexpected sense of wonder and play.

A collection of poems, compiled by A.L. Alexander, who used one of the inspirational verses to close each of his radio broadcasts of "The Good Will Court," and "The Court of Human Relations."