Doctor to the Resistance

Starred review from July 1, 2004
Journalist and documentary film producer Vaughan has used recently declassified French sources as well as letters, diaries, and interviews to tell the story of Sumner "Jack" Jackson of Maine, a decorated front-line surgeon and urologist who joined the British army as a volunteer physician during World War I. Never again comfortable with American life, Jackson and his French wife, a Red Cross nurse, settled in Paris after the war. There he became medical director of the American Hospital, treating the elite of Paris, and the text includes stories about his relationships with leading figures of the Lost Generation. The hospital became the base for his Resistance activities during World War II, which included hiding "patients" from the Germans and treating wounded Allied flyers and Resistance fighters. This accessible, absorbing, and inspirational book is both an important chronicle of Parisian life under the Vichy regime and an expos of Resistance operations. It also reveals the impact of Jackson's politics on his teenage son and the tragic fate that befell the entire family, wrenchingly demonstrating the high price paid for Jackson's acts of courage. Moving and inspirational; for most libraries.-Marie Marmo Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., NJ

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.