Even during the years when he was working in factories, pushing a broom, getting fired from jobs, battling illness and going through rehab, Mr. Jones always thought of himself as a writer. “I’m a great believer in fate, and I believe that all those things in my life had to happen — being a drunk, a boxer, the epilepsy, the diabetes,” he told the Seattle Times. “You have to suffer a lot before you can be a writer of fiction.”