Barbed-Wire Surgeon is the previously best-selling WW2 memoir written by Alfred A. Weinstein, M.D. Originally published in 1948 through 1965, this one-time selection of the popular Book-of-the-Month Club is the heroic true story of Dr. Weinstein’s harrowing survival through forty months in numerous Japanese prison camps.
It is the story of a group of doctors and medics who continued to fight the Japanese after the surrender of Bataan and Corregidor with flattery, infinite patience, and even deadly consequences to keep a spark of life flickering in their fellow prisoners. Against a somber tapestry of chronic hunger, starvation, and disease, a thin golden thread of the love of a man and woman weaves back and forth. In its broader aspects this is a tale of mankind with his veneer of civilization stripped away.
“EXTREMELY POWERFUL…VERY MOVING” New Yorker
“INTENSE, AMAZING, EXPLICIT…CERTAINLY THIS IS A WORK TO BE RANKED AMONG THE GREAT WAR BOOKS OF THIS GENERATION” Hartford Courant
“Boasts characters far more alive and interesting than any fictional characters could be, a plot that could be lifted by Hollywood almost verbatim, a love story as tender and thrilling as the veriest romantic could wish, an interesting and well-described background and a sheer continuity of interest and suspense that keeps you on the edge of your chair until the wee hours…It offers everything the reader could wish for” Frank G. Slaughter, M.D.
It is the story of a group of doctors and medics who continued to fight the Japanese after the surrender of Bataan and Corregidor with flattery, infinite patience, and even deadly consequences to keep a spark of life flickering in their fellow prisoners. Against a somber tapestry of chronic hunger, starvation, and disease, a thin golden thread of the love of a man and woman weaves back and forth. In its broader aspects this is a tale of mankind with his veneer of civilization stripped away.
“EXTREMELY POWERFUL…VERY MOVING” New Yorker
“INTENSE, AMAZING, EXPLICIT…CERTAINLY THIS IS A WORK TO BE RANKED AMONG THE GREAT WAR BOOKS OF THIS GENERATION” Hartford Courant
“Boasts characters far more alive and interesting than any fictional characters could be, a plot that could be lifted by Hollywood almost verbatim, a love story as tender and thrilling as the veriest romantic could wish, an interesting and well-described background and a sheer continuity of interest and suspense that keeps you on the edge of your chair until the wee hours…It offers everything the reader could wish for” Frank G. Slaughter, M.D.
