Description
An extraordinary novel of love, friendship, and betrayal for admirers of Abraham Verghese and Edwidge Danticat
Eleanor Morse’s rich and intimate portrait of Botswana, and of three
people whose intertwined lives are at once tragic and remarkable, is an
absorbing and deeply moving story.
In apartheid South Africa in 1976, medical student Isaac Muthethe is
forced to flee his country after witnessing a friend murdered by white
members of the South African Defense Force. He is smuggled into
Botswana, where he is hired as a gardener by a young American woman,
Alice Mendelssohn, who has abandoned her Ph.D. studies to follow her
husband to Africa. When Isaac goes missing and Alice goes searching for
him, what she finds will change her life and inextricably bind her to
this sunburned, beautiful land.
Like the African terrain that Alice loves, Morse’s novel is
alternately austere and lush, spare and lyrical. She is a writer of
great and wide-ranging gifts.
About the Author
Eleanor Morse is the author of An Unexpected Forest, which
won the Independent Publisher’s Gold Medalist Award for the Best
Regional Fiction in the Northeast U.S., and was selected winner of Best
Published Fiction by the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance at the
2008 Maine Literary Awards. She lives on Peaks Island, Maine.
Praise for White Dog Fell from the Sky…
"White Dog Fell From the Sky catches the soul of
compassion. It is one of the wisest, most comprehensive, most compelling
books I've ever read. Neither human nor beast is treated sentimentally,
but the capacity to care is celebrated here in a way that is
politically and personally cogent. It's a wild and wooly story in a far
away land, yet its relevance is present in our own imperfect hearts:
who and how to love and when and why to stop. Here's the real thing, a
book of genuine intellect and inspiration, superbly written,
fascinating."- Sena Jeter Naslund, New York Times bestselling author of Ahab's Wife, Abundance and Adam & Eve
“Magic, friendship, the tragedy of apartheid and the triumph of
loyalty are recounted in poetic, powerful prose by this unconventional
and intelligent writer. Shattering and uplifting.”—Kuki Gallmann, author
of I Dreamed of Africa
“Eleanor Morse captures
the magic of the African landscape and the terror and degradation of
life under apartheid…[She] channels her fascination with the factious
regions into her courageous characters, whose story roars along and
arrives, finally, at hope.”—O, The Oprah Magazine
"There are not enough adjectives to describe the
strength of this story. Eleanor Morse has written a character driven
novel with character. White Dog Fell From the Sky has a life of
its own that blends reality, insight, observation, and nuance with such
ease and grace you forget you are reading...A powerful story of
love—love of a person, a people, a land and living with
purpose...Emotionally riveting, heartbreaking, and at times unbearable,
while simultaneously embracing hope, insight, and a sense of perpetual
mystery. Each sentence is more beuatiful than the last."—Gabriel
Constans, New York Journal of Books
"White Dog
Fell from the Sky is that rare thing: a convinced and convincing love
story. Past that—and this novel’s reach is wide—it reminds us,
tellingly, how Africa is mother of us all.”—Madison Smartt Bell, author
of All Souls’ Rising and The Color of Night
“Big issues of ecology, politics, borders, race relations, art, and history.”—Hazel Rochman, Booklist
"Morse brings the natural world of Botswana to vivid life."—Kirkus Reviews
“Brutal and beautiful…it explores the strength and
friendship, the bonds of love, and the inhumanity regimes are capable of
inflicting upon individuals…Morse’s unflinching portrayals of extremes
of loyalty and cruelty make for an especially memorable novel.”—Publishers Weekly
