You Don't Belong Here

How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War

By: Elizabeth Becker

Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan

The long-buried story of three extraordinary female journalists who permanently shattered the barriers to women covering war

Kate Webb, an Australian iconoclast, Catherine Leroy, a French daredevil photographer, and Frances FitzGerald, a blue-blood American intellectual, arrived in Vietnam with starkly different life experiences but one shared purpose: to report on the most consequential story of the decade. At a time when women were considered unfit to be foreign reporters, Frankie, Catherine, and Kate challenged the rules imposed on them by the military, ignored the belittlement of their male peers, and ultimately altered the craft of war reportage for generations.

In You Don’t Belong Here, Elizabeth Becker uses these women’s work and lives to illuminate the Vietnam War from the 1965 American buildup, the expansion into Cambodia, and the American defeat and its aftermath. Arriving herself in the last years of the war, Becker writes as a historian and a witness of the times.

What emerges is an unforgettable story of three journalists forging their place in a land of men, often at great personal sacrifice. Deeply reported and filled with personal letters, interviews, and profound insight, You Don’t Belong Here fills a void in the history of women and of war.

Fascinating

Excellent study of three female journalists enduring the sexism, devastation of war & fight to tell the truth and get published.

A Riveting Story

Excellent history lesson that gave this male Viet Nam veteran an important insight into that war and the aftermath from a female perspective.

Fascinating history

This book is a truly fascinating look at three women who covered the war in Vietnam. My husband and I listened eagerly.

A great Story

This book held me spellbound. Everyone needs to know about these brave woman. A must read.

Very good read

Surprised that so few have listened to this production. The three contributors each follow different paths to Vietnam. The experiences of these women combine to give the listener three very valid sources for understanding the war more deeply. Each of them also provide a more thorough understanding of what war costs those who experience it: warrior, innocent and observer.

Women serve today as warriors, but these three had to prove that they were even capable of being observers... and they had to prove it over and over again. My only quibble is with some of the pronunciations of Vietnamese words. Hue (Way) is pronounced as who-ee to name but one. I would have preferred something like "Who-ee which was often called Way by Americans." It is admittedly a minor point, but a jarring one for those of us who served there.

It is an excellent read and I would recommend it without reservation.