Contact Wounds

From the author of the New York Times Notable Book, The Dressing Station: “A gripping memoir” of a doctor’s education on the battlefield (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).   Inspired by his father’s time as a military surgeon in World War II, Jonathan Kaplan became a doctor and was appointed to a post at a woefully understaffed South African general hospital in a black township. Fleeing apartheid, he traveled the globe in search of sanctuary, experiencing riots, tropical fevers, political upheaval, and a jungle search for a lost friend. Kaplan eventually landed in Angola, taking charge of a combat-zone hospital, the only surgeon for 160,000 civilians, where he was exposed daily to the horrors of warfare.   This “revealing” memoir unflinchingly captures the experiences of a man who’s devoted his career and his life to saving people caught in the crossfire of war (Los Angeles Times).   “[Kaplan] tells stories with the rawness and incomprehensibility of life itself. His words transport the reader to places most would fear to go.” —Publishers Weekly

From the author of the New York Times Notable Book, The Dressing Station: “A gripping memoir” of a doctor’s education on the battlefield (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).   Inspired by his father’s time as a military surgeon in World War II, Jonathan Kaplan became a doctor and was appointed to a post at a woefully understaffed South African general hospital in a black township. Fleeing apartheid, he traveled the globe in search of sanctuary, experiencing riots, tropical fevers, political upheaval, and a jungle search for a lost friend. Kaplan eventually landed in Angola, taking charge of a combat-zone hospital, the only surgeon for 160,000 civilians, where he was exposed daily to the horrors of warfare.   This “revealing” memoir unflinchingly captures the experiences of a man who’s devoted his career and his life to saving people caught in the crossfire of war (Los Angeles Times).   “[Kaplan] tells stories with the rawness and incomprehensibility of life itself. His words transport the reader to places most would fear to go.” —Publishers Weekly