This is the first book to trace the history of a daring anti-Nazi campaign undertaken by a pair of French women, Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe, better known today by other names: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore.

The women built on their talents as Parisian avant-garde artists to write and distribute “paper bullets”—vicious insults against Hitler, calls to rebel, and subversive imagined dialogues designed to demoralize Nazi troops occupying their adopted home on the British Channel Island of Jersey. Effectively devising their own propaganda campaign, they slipped their notes into soldier’s pockets or tucked them inside newsstand magazines. Hunted by the secret field police, Schwob and Malherbe were ultimately betrayed in 1944, after which they were imprisoned, court martialed, and sentenced to death. MIraculously, they survived, and even while imprisoned they continued to fight the Nazis by reaching out to other prisoners and spreading a message of hope.

This was an engaging and at times thrilling story of one of the overlooked parts of history - the contributions of LBGTQ people The the war effort during WW2. Obviously their lives were in danger, as Hitler and his minions targeted gay, lesbian, and disabled people along with Jews and the Romany. This is the story of two women, Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe, who used their artistic talents to wage a psychological war on the Nazi occupiers of the island of Jersey. writing biting insults of Hitler and the Nazis along with calls to rebel, which they hid in magazines at news stands or put into soldiers' pockets like reverse pick-picketers.

Effective enough to be hunted by the Nazis, they were found out in 1944, convicted and sentenced to death (they did survive, though!)

An excellent story about the powered of words, whether used as weapons or as a means to encourage and support community. And a good reminder, that even though we may not be able to fight in the traditional manner, other options are at hand. Great read!

Such a different WWII read. I thoroughly enjoyed this story of resistance. Both heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once.

Gripping from the beginning, Jackson provides us with the story of two artists and their quest to defy Nazi rule in wartime France. I absolutely adored this book! Great and fast read, especially if you normally aren’t a non fiction reader. 4 stars

There are many books about the valiant resistance efforts in Nazi occupied territories, especially those (appropriately) lauded heroes who helped save individuals from the Holocaust and members of organized groups dedicated to intelligence gathering and sabotage. Paper Bullets is a story of quieter, but highly effective resistance. Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe lived on the island of Jersey, and created their own psychological warfare campaign against the Nazis who occupied the British Channel Islands. Posing as disillusioned German soldiers, they wrote notes and messages encouraging soldiers to give up fighting, think of their own families back in Germany, and return home. Their campaign was successful enough to attract the eye of the secret field police, and landed them in prison and facing a court martial with a potential death sentence. The resistance effort by the couple is the focus of the book, but it also provides a look at the avant garde art world in Paris between the wars.

The book was interesting, but focused more on the avant garde art dimension of Schwob and Malherbe’s lives than I anticipated. It was occasionally a bit dry, but overall a solid read.

Paper Bullets is a fascinating addition to the Resistance Fighters' stories of World War II. Two women, Lucy Schwab and Suzanne Malherbe, are not your typical resistance fighters. They are intellectuals, artistic, creative and lovers. Their means of defying the Nazi invaders' status quo on Jersey in the Channel Islands was a bit more low-key than others. They left anti-fascist pamphlets and notes in obscure places, hence the title. I found their risk-taking quite admirable, jeopardizing their lives unconditionally for what they believed in.
Their relationship, at a time when there was no acceptance, was deftly explored by the author.
I did find the time the 2 women spent in prison a bit disconcerting. Their close relationship with their captors seemed a bit hard to fathom. I was introduced to people I knew nothing about which I appreciated. Their heroism was eye-opening.

While I enjoyed the story of the two women, I believe I was still expecting much more resistance based on the description than what was in here.

In Paper Bullets by Jeffrey H. Jackson , Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe take big risks by leaving notes all over their island that encourage the Germans to rebel against the Nazi troops. The places in which they left the notes were quite risky and I am surprised with how long they were able to get away with it. You are left to wonder what the effect their notes may have had on the troops, though the author does try to give some idea with a few German soldiers as example.

While this book was not quite what I was expecting, I would still recommend this to others.

Paper Bullets by Jeffrey H. Jackson was not what I expected. I thought it was going to be an account of wartime resistance. But it seemed to be more about memorializing Suzanne Malherbe, whom Jackson believes has been previously misunderstood.

The women spent the 1920s as a couple in Paris cross dressing, and creating art - primarily photographs - that blurred gender lines. Jackson spends the first fifth of the book describing this period in their lives. He portrays their lives, particularly Lucy's, as one of struggle - a struggle Jackson feels prepared them to be resisters in wartime.

The section on their resistance activities seemed like it was difficult to write - perhaps Jackson didn't have much material to work with. He would leave the storyline of the women's resistance to skip back to the Paris timeframe. He attempted to connect Schwob and Malherbe's art and style with their WWII resistance. He would take the tone of an art critic to draw together themes. It was quite a stretch, and I found it distracting from the overall story. I also had trouble seeing their acts of resistance as being very significant. They were never part of an organized movement, but preferred to be separate from others.

The prison section was odd, even by Nazi prison standards. There was heavy emphasis on the friendly relationships between Suzanne and the German prison workers. Suzanne, in particular, was portrayed as a woman who stood strong in her ethical convictions and was respected by her captors.

*spoiler alert
Lucy and Suzanne both attempted suicide twice during their several months in prison. They were cared for by their housemate and neighbor, who brought several care packages, yet the women seemed to have no close relationships outside of each other. The women died of ill health and suicide 10 and 30 years after the war ended.

The comments about relationships are to say something didn't ring true about the way Jackson reconstructed the narrative, although he clearly did a lot of research.

I was provided an electronic ARC in exchange for my review. #NetGalley

This was simultaneously gripping and very hard to read. A tale of two people in love during a time of fascism and hate when the very things that make up who they are - their genders, their beliefs, their art, their love - make them bigger targets, and the things they did to fight back. Given the administration of the past four years and my own identities in a time of authoritarian regime, this hit me in a lot of tender places. Some places it bruised, other places it healed.

The two women (though I use the term loosely; I wasn't there, I wasn't with them, and it wasn't the here and now, but both people seem to identify as what we would now call GNC or nonbinary, or possibly something else entirely) outlined in Paper Bullets used their skills as artists and their connections in the French revolutionary art scene to fight the Nazis from their home on the tiny occupied island of Jersey, using cigarette papers to make antifascist fliers that they would leave behind on the windshields of cars, tiny messages of defiance and strength in the face of violence and hate. After all, who would suspect two women, two 'sisters,' one of them ill at that? And yet, if they had been discovered, their very identities, the things they were using as well of resilience, would have been their downfall.

The prose in this book is beautiful in its straightforwardness, and the pictures that are included are powerful, beautiful, almost painful to look at. As we continue, in the US and around the world, though a time of uneasy transition, Paper Bullets shows us that it can be done, and that love and truth will bolster us through even the hardest times and darkest places.

I am hooked on World War II history from the women’s perspective. It is amazing to me after all these years, we are learning so much about women and their contribution to the defeat of fascism.

In the past few years it seems there have been myriad stories of women spies and this particular book has some tremendous twists on that genre. Art and LGBTQ combine for a fresh historical perspective. I was fascinated.

Four stars. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

Paper Bullets // by Jeffrey H. Jackson

I had a really difficult time deciding on how to rate this book because I really couldn't figure out my feelings for it. I decided to settle on 3 stars because while I found that it covered a highly interesting topic, I did struggle to stay engaged with the book itself due to its organization at some points. The women whose lives were explored in Paper Bullets were incredible. I had never heard of them before and found their strength in the face of such difficulties to be such a huge inspiration. I love that they found a purpose and a passion during such a hard time in their lives and how they stayed true to who they were even when they faced death itself. While I had heard of Jersey before, I did not actually know about any of its history. I got to learn a lot about the island and its inhabitants in this book as well as the small ways in which civilians resisted their Nazi invaders, from inside and outside their jail cells. It was also interesting as well as unsettling to be forced to view these soldiers as fellow human beings with complex motivations, fears, and goals despite the regime they worked under that was so undeniably cruel.

While I highly admire these women and their cause, I did struggle to stay immersed in the book. It may be possible that the final draft of the book is more organized with better transitions but as it is, I found myself confused and pulled out of the story several times by scene changes that weren't immediately obvious due to the lack of indication that one situation ended and a new one began. I do recommend reading the notes at the end of the book as it may explain some of the difficulties in writing a cohesive book for the lives of these incredible women. Overall, I am very glad to have read this book as it taught me an entirely new chapter about this time in history.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

What a wonderful read this is! Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe moved from Paris to the island of Jersey in 1937, thinking they would find peace to create their art. Two women who loved one another, they had been deeply involved with the active Paris art scene, where their relationship might have been commented on but not dismissed. On Jersey, however, they styled themselves as sisters and were happy until the Nazis arrived in 1940. These two picked themselves up and began the sort of small acts of resistance that tyrants abhor and as a result, found themselves arrested and sentenced to death. This is a case where they really did persist- even as they faced horror, they kept up their civil disobedience to keep others informed and spirits buoyed. Luckily. they were ultimately released. Lucy suffered more than Suzanne with ptsd but their story is one of triumph. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. These two are an inspiration.

This is like no other Nazi resistance story I’ve read. It is the non-fiction account of two French women, avant-garde artists who write “paper bullets”, insults about Hitler. Not only were these women bold, but they were also lesbian lovers who risked their personal freedom because of patriotism. The research is meticulously done but may seem too academic to some readers. That was not true of me. And that it took place, not in Paris, but on the tiny island of Jersey, makes it even more remarkable since the small the locale the more difficult it is to keep secrets

This was a unique and interesting read for me. I had never heard of Schwob and Malherbe before this book and I went 'down the rabbit trail' afterwards, wanting to learn even more.
This book was very informative and detailed and their history and contribution to the resistance was unique and intriguing.
I love the cross over between WWII, art, and LGBTQ+ and know that this will find an audience with our high school library patrons. My only wish is that it has been slightly condensed for the attention span of my high school readers.

PaperBullets serves as a reminder that when confronted with a horrible situation, there's always something we can do. Suzanne and Lucy were lovers, living on the British channel island of Jersey when WWII began. Churchill didn't have enough resources to defend the islands, so the Nazis invaded. Lucy was a writer, and Suzanne an artist, and they decided to reproduce notes and leave them in places where the German soldiers would find them. The idea was to negatively affect morale, and they certainly did! The Nazis expended a lot of effort to identify the people behind the notes, and in 1944, they were tipped off. Lucy and Suzanne were arrested, interrogated, and originally sentenced to death. Meanwhile, the Nazis had looted their home of anything valuable. The miracle is that the women survived until the end of the war.
Jackson's research appears to have been very thorough, and the story is well told, but I felt the pacing was a bit slow.

1920's Paris was "a place for women to be more independent than they had been before [WW I]". Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe were step-sisters, wealthy bourgeois, bank-rolled by their families so they could embrace life in bohemian Paris. They were frequent visitors to evenings hosted by Sylvia Beach [owner of Shakespeare And Company], an English language bookstore and its counterpart, the French language bookstore owned by Adrienne Monnier where "literary lights" could meet. Beach & Monnier and Gertrude Stein & Alice B. Toklas were their role models. Lively discussions of arts and ideology prevailed. Lucy & Suzanne were lovers, however, well practiced in the art of secrecy. Lucy was painfully introverted and sickly. Suzanne was calm, down to earth and Lucy's caregiver. Each was artistic with a common love of photography. Lucy was a writer, Suzanne an illustrator. They worked with surrealists to push artistic boundaries. In 1922, conversations were becoming more political, tensions were rising.

By 1937, war was coming. Lucy had an additional secret. She was of Jewish heritage. The two women chose to move to Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands. The island's towns offered a blend of English and French culture. When Germans became the occupiers, Lucy and Suzanne used the written word as a form of resistance. Arguably, "most writers in occupied territories targeted civilians. The goal of these authors was to keep up morale. By contrast, Lucy and Suzanne spoke directly to the soldiers themselves appealing to them in their native language as good German men, hoping to divide the soldiers from their leaders so that the rank and file would desert or even mutiny". They created a disgruntled soldier with his own signature and identity...Der Soldat Ohne Namen-The Soldier With No Name. The German High Command was frustrated trying to unmask this soldier. Notes were slipped into soldiers pockets, montages between pages of magazines, leaflets left on cafe tables and in churches. An abandoned house soon to have German occupants displayed a wall hanging, a cropped photo of soldiers legs marching through the mud with the caption, "Ohne Ende-Without End".

Claude Cahun (Lucy) and Marcel Moore (Suzanne) both fifty-ish, seemingly eccentric sisters, defied the Nazis through messages both creative and highly humorous. "Their work clearly was and always would be, a partnership". Claude (Lucy) most often was the model photographed in the avant-garde style as seen through the lens of Marcel (Suzanne), the photographer. The Jersey Heritage Collection houses many photos of Lucy including a photo of Lucy dressed as the Buddha, ca. 1927. "Lucy and Suzanne enjoyed the freedom to float between [genders] when it suited them".

"Paper Bullets: Two Artists Who Risked Their Lives to Defy The Nazis" by Jeffrey H. Jackson is an insightful, meticulously researched history of two remarkable women. To the citizenry of Jersey, they seemed to self isolate, but in truth, they performed many acts of kindness while using words, poems and illustrations as a form of psychological warfare, so called "paper bullets". Author Jackson has masterfully documented the lives of two very important resistance fighters in the Channel Islands. Highly recommended.

Thank you Algonquin Books and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When the Channel Islands were taken over by the Nazis two female artists living in Jersey decided to take on the Nazis headfirst by waging their own war of homemade propaganda and art. It was brave, maybe foolish and it created a great deal of angst for the German command. The author tells this story as if he too couldn't believe how long they kept this up before they were captured and imprisoned. These two women, Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe told everyone they were sisters but kept a much more dangerous secret - they were longtime lovers. Held in prison they were separated but still managed to communicate in unusual ways. It is an amazing story of the power of underground movement and more of WWII's unsung heroines. It is easy to read and includes photographs throughout to help illustrate just how avant-garde they were. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

PAPER BULLETS tells the story of the WWII occupation of Jersey by the Germans through the experiences of two partners who resisted the occupation by means of their clandestine art and writing. Suzanne Malherbe,aka Marcel Moore, and Lucy Schwob, aka Claude Cahun, were a lesbian couple and avant-garde French artists who had moved to the Isle of Jersey in the Channel Islands between England and France shortly before the war broke out. This is their story as they used their talents--their paper bullets--to undermine German morale.
If you liked THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY, you might enjoy PAPER BULLETS, the true-life story of what occurred in the Channel Islands during WWII. There are some amazing contemporary pictures that give the reader a clearer idea of the people and landscape involved. Unfortunately, the writing did not do justice to the subject matter and too often I found it to be dry and plodding.
Nevertheless, the book's focus on a little-known theatre of the war makes it a worthwhile addition to WWII literature.

Jeffrey Jackson's Paper Bullets is a perceptive and vividly astute portrait of Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe, known professionally as Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, who wrote, photographed, and engaged in avant garde performance art in early 20th Century France. It is also a thrilling, suspenseful narrative not only of the broad sweep of their interesting lives but also specifically their unique way of resisting Nazi Occupation on Jersey Island during World War II. Schwob and Malherbe used messages in art and leaflets, even defaced coins, to wear down German soldiers' commitment to the war. With classy courage and a defiance with flair, they faced down their jailer interrogators and answered them with clever, contemptuous retorts. Readers can be forgiven for being even entertained by this, even if the glee comes with a bit of guilt knowing the dangers and risks they faced were quite real. With thoughtful historical analysis and biographically thorough attention to the subject's early and later lives, as well as matter-of-fact sympathetic attention to their unconventional gender identities and ideas, Paper Bullets will be a winning book offering many angles for discussion groups especially. Magnificent!

This is an incredible story from WWII that needed to be told. I give Mr. Jackson a lot of credit for finding, researching and telling it. It is long overdue that someone did so. One hears about the resistance fighters who did physical resistance - sabotage, undermining the Germany military, collecting intelligence and the like. Once also hears a bit about the military psychological warfare but not about individuals who did things in the same line. Here are two "ordinary" women who very successfully caused the Germans - specifically the occupying forces in Jersey - a lot of grief. by doing very simple things using the artistic talents. It sounds so simple and yet it was very effective. It may not have turned the tide of the war directly, yet it caused the Germans great distress as show by what happened after they were arrested, jailed and convicted. Even in jail they continued to use their ingenuity to continue their work in some ways. I give Mr. Jackson credit for also telling and respecting the story of the women's relationship. Something that is rarely talked about especially in the time frame - the 1940's - when this story took place. They were brave in what they did and how they lived their lives full as who they were. My one disappointment was that the writing was not up to the story. The book often dragged and felt overly verbose. The story itself was very engaging and one that should be read and covered in history classes. The writing made the book feel too long. I regularly felt bogged down in the words, though the story was too important to not keep going to continue to learn more.