White Dog Fell from the Sky by Eleanor Morse

Published by Viking on January 3, 2013 

White Dog Fell from the Sky begins with a startling scene.  A hearse stops on a dusty road.  Isaac Muthethe’s body is removed from a coffin and laid on the ground.  When Isaac revives, a white dog is sitting next to him.  He is relieved to discover that he is in Botswana.  Formerly a medical student in South Africa, Isaac became a follower of Stephen Biko’s movement to end apartheid.  Isaac fled after officers of the South African Defense Force murdered his friend.

In Botswana, Isaac searches for work in an affluent neighborhood where foreigners hire servants and gardeners. The white dog follows faithfully as he goes from door to door. He eventually finds employment as a gardener for an American woman named Alice, whose marital woes seem inconsequential compared to Isaac's problems. Isaac understands that "the bitter heart eats its owner," but he cannot forget the hardships endured by his family. Early in the novel the reader wonders whether Isaac will join the armed resistance against the South African Defense Force, particularly after its members enter Botswana and kill people who are close to him. Unfortunately, some choices are out of Isaac's hands.

The novel shines when it focuses on Isaac. He is a remarkable young man, caring and selfless, forced into a life of hardship and confusion. The novel's shine is tarnished when Alice's mundane problems come to the forefront. Alice is something of a twit. She feels no desire for her husband ("her body felt nothing for his") and tells him so, but seems surprised when he has an affair. She spends a good deal of the novel fretting about her life while showing little inclination to improve it.

Unfortunately, Isaac all but disappears for a large part of the novel and Alice's story becomes the dominant one. Alice meets a fellow named Ian who wants to cut the fences that are harming the nation's wildlife   Despite her generally low opinion of men, she immediately falls for Ian, then falls away in an overly sensitive reaction to something she overhears, then is madly in love with him, all within the space of 24 hours. Why Ian thinks she's worth pursuing in unclear, but after being with her for a day he can't live without her. Their love story is predictably chaotic. Ian is no prize, as he quickly proves, but by working to document the vanishing culture of the San, he is at least trying to accomplish something meaningful while he's in Africa. Had the entire Alice and Ian section been excised from the novel, nothing of value would have been lost. When Alice (minus Ian) resumes center stage, there is very little left worth reading about. After Isaac finally resurfaces, he reignites the story's spark, but it comes too late to redeem the novel.

Although it is obvious that Eleanor Morse once lived in Botswana, descriptions of the country read as if they were cribbed from a Rough Guide. Despite Morse's fluid writing style, the country doesn't come alive; the atmosphere isn't vivid. The historical information about the San is interesting but it reads like an article in National Geographic. The discussion of the San comes across as academic, rather than the passionate, first-person account we would expect to hear from Ian if he were a real person.

The image of the white dog is interesting ("White Dog knew things from the other world, things that most dogs don't know") but the symbolism of White Dog's steadfast devotion and patience is a bit forced. I think the novel is trying to deliver a message but I'm not sure what it is. Good things come to dogs who wait? Life is tragic for everyone? Love is complicated? It's better to be in love than to try to save the world? Ian's revelation in a moment of danger -- "without love, there's nothing" -- is awfully trite. The attempt to equate Alice's life with Isaac's, because they both "lost something" and feel empty, is ludicrous.

Ultimately, White Dog Fell from the Sky strikes me as a marvelous novel married to a mediocre novel.  Since the mediocre novel dominates, I cannot recommend the work as a whole with any enthusiasm.

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