The first week of publication YOU DON’T BELONG HERE was one of the five best reviewed non-fiction books in the country. Tabulated by Book Marks
You Don’t Belong Here was Pick of the Week in the Nine Newspapers (The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Times and WAToday.com.au). READ MORE
The Herald Sun (Australia)
Saturday 15th May 202
Pioneering Trio Who Helped Pave the Way
You would have thought that by the late ’60s and early ’70s women would have been seen as equals and comrades in journalism. But as foreign and war correspondents, they were told they were not made for the job. Had the men who tried to block French photographer Catherine Leroy, the American Frances FitzGerald and renowned Australian journalist Kate Webb from covering the Vietnam War and other conflicts never heard of their frontline predecessors Nelly Bly, Margaret Bourke-White and Martha Gellhorn? Probably not. Whether the men who tried to keep them on the “women’s pages” were being paternalistic or misogynistic, they failed miserably to deter these and other women. The multiple biography is a difficult genre in which to get the right balance but here Becker weaves together a wonderful and compelling picture of determination, talent and sacrifice that changed the face of journalism.
BARRY REYNOLDS
VERDICT: MAKING HERSTORY
Three groundbreaking journalists saw the Vietnam War differently. It’s no coincidence they were women.
By Margaret Sullivan
“Half a century later, the work of these journalists remains inspiring. So is Becker’s clearsighted book, which puts us at the scene, with the advantage of decades of hindsight and her own deep experience. If there’s a wasted or boring word here, I couldn’t find it”. READ MORE
Three female journalists who braved the chaos of Vietnam
“Becker not only shines a light on the contributions of those correspondents – along with the risks they took to show and tell the raw truths of the war as they saw it – but provides a valuable depth of cultural and historical insight into the conflict.
“Another crucial layer emerges as the narrative progresses, and that is the parallel story of American political naïveté in committing a military with a World War II mind-set to a war against a people whose history and culture – and ways of fighting – they made little attempt to comprehend.”
YOU DON’T BELONG HERE is deserving of a wide readership.” READ MORE
The Women Who Changed War Reporting
By George Packer
“Her theme in You Don’t Belong Here—conveyed, with controlled anger, in a riveting narrative using unpublished letters and diaries—is that women reporters changed the way the war was covered.”
“Becker conveys the particular sacrifices that these three women had to make: the indignities, the psychological cost, the elusiveness of stable relationships and children. Still, it’s exhilarating to read Becker’s account of how these women overcame the narrow definitions of their early lives and found themselves by surrendering to the extreme demands of reporting a war.” READ MORE
Three saw war, heroism from different perspective
These woman journalists showed sides of the decade-long Vietnam War that their male counterparts didn’t cover
By Mike Tharp
“To do shorthand violence to this memorable work, it might be said that the male correspondents focused on the blood and guts of Vietnam. Webb, FitzGerald and Leroy focused on the hearts and minds.”
“Becker transforms what could have been a good book into a prize-worthy page-turner of tension, suspense and drama. The tone of the book intensifies with each chapter (all deftly named). Becker never loses sight of her goal to illuminate these women in the larger context of America’s biggest foreign policy disaster of the 20th century.” READ MORE
How 3 Women Broke Into the Uber-Macho World of War Reporting
By Janine Di Giovanni
“In Becker’s compelling book, three extraordinary women—Catherine Leroy, Frances “Frankie” FitzGerald, and Kate Webb—arrive in Vietnam at the height of the war to try to depict the conflict in unique ways. Each is determined to make her mark and to make the war her own. Each becomes captivated by the country, drawn in deeply, and committed to the people and culture. They are equally appalled by the horror of the atrocities and intent on bringing to light the murky U.S. foreign policy in the region.
“She writes beautifully of the heartache the women suffer, their struggles to be taken seriously, the guffaws, the catcalls, the daily small humiliations that amounted to the French photographer’s fierce indictment: You don’t belong here.
“But they did belong. And the proof is their legacy.” READ MORE
5 Hot Books: Iconic Women War Correspondents, the Cost of Racism, and More
You Don’t Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of Warby Elizabeth Becker (PublicAffairs) Group biography at its best, Becker’s book brings to life its trio of intrepid female journalists who redefined the role of women in war reporting and enhanced appreciation of the nuances of the Vietnam War and the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. The trio were the brilliant magazine writer Frances FitzGerald, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fire in the Lake; stunning photographer Catherine Leroy; and fierce combat reporter Kate Webb. Becker contends that these journalists transformed the war story: “They were outsiders – excluded by nature from the confines of male journalism, with all its presumptions and easy jingoism.” A journalist herself, Becker followed the trail blazed by these women in Southeast Asia, reporting on the war from Cambodia, which gives her a unique, nuanced understanding of the region’s landscape and dynamics.” READ MORE
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
By Lawrence D. Freedman
“Becker, who made her name reporting on war in Cambodia and the rise of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, delivers an enthralling biography of three female war correspondents who preceded her in Southeast Asia, reporting on the Vietnam War.
Becker blends their individual stories with wider history, setting the unfolding tragedy in Vietnam in the background as her protagonists develop doubts about the logic and legitimacy of the war.” READ MORE
Book Page
By Deborah Hopkinson
“Many barriers were eventually broken, thanks in part to the extraordinary women Becker profiles so adroitly here, combining their personal histories with the major events of the conflict……You Don’t Belong Here is a significant contribution to the history of both the Vietnam War and women in journalism.” READ MORE
BOOK REVIEW: ‘You Don’t Belong Here’
By james Borton
Elizabeth talks about OVERBOOKED
“A work of the first importance.”