Overview

When a ninety-five-year-old World War II veteran from Utah agrees to reveal the untold details of his wartime experiences to a pediatrician from Brooklyn, an intense bond is formed between the two men, each of whom is taken on an unexpected journey in search of the truth. Dreams of My Comrades chronicles the life of Murray Jacobs, a former Navy Seabee, who served in the Pacific Theater and was treated for PTSD until his death at the age of ninety-eight. He agreed to a series of interviews, under the strict conditions that his real name could not be used, and the details of the conversations could not be disclosed to anyone until after he was dead. Murray's story is not one of heroism, nor does he portray himself as heroic in his narrative. In the course of his dialogue with the author, Murray confesses to wartime atrocities the likes of which have never before been heard. Despite his advanced age, his recollections are entirely lucid, and he describes the events of his life in vivid detail. As the conversations progress, however, the author comes to recognize the challenges involved in trying to depict history based on the account of a single elderly man. Discrepancies lead to doubts, doubts lead to disbelief, disbelief leads to investigation, and after exhausting all possible avenues of research, unanswered questions linger and tantalize. This is a unique story, one that will not only appeal to connoisseurs of history but to anyone interested in the psychology of the human condition. It is unlike any narrative ever told about a veteran of the Second World War.

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9781620067451

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I found Dreams of My Comrades captivating. When I put it down at night I was eager to return to it the next day. The author was not only on top of his subject, I found him likable, funny, clever, sympathetic, insightful, and as fair as he could, in good conscience, be. How war atrocities gave way to an unexpected mystery midstream was particularly compelling. The title, which I didn't think much of in the beginning, turns out to be brilliant. --Poe Ballantine, Award-winning author of Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere

Author Information

"Dr. Scott Zuckerman was born in Brooklyn, New York, and attended Stuyvesant High School in lower Manhattan. His high school English teacher, Frank McCourt-who would later win a Pulitzer Prize for his memoir, Angela's Ashes-inscribed in his yearbook, ""You have displayed the writer's gift. Cultivate it."" Forty years later, after a successful career as a physician, Zuckerman has heeded McCourt's advice. Dreams of My Comrades was awarded first place in the nonfiction category of the 2015 Utah Original Writing Competition."

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