Gossip from the Forest: A Novel

Thomas Keneally

12/2015 · Open Road Media

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Booker Prize Finalist: A “gripping” novel of the World War I armistice negotiations that set the stage for World War II, by the author of Schindler’s List (The Guardian).

In November 1918, after four long years of murderous conflict, six men gather in a railroad car in a secluded forest outside Paris, France, to negotiate an end to World War I. A pacifist, left-leaning diplomat with no military knowledge or experience, Matthias Erzberger has been selected by the German high command to represent their surrendering nation, for reasons as baffling to him as to anyone. He is joined by France’s aging, vindictive Marshal Foch and Britain’s unbending Admiral Wemyss in an attempt to bring peace to a war-torn world. In these claustrophobic quarters the future is to be decided by men driven by ego, prejudice, fear, exhaustion, vengeance, delusion, and, in Erzberger’s case, conscience. But the well-meaning diplomat’s futile efforts to secure lenient surrender terms will have devastating consequences for Europe, the Fatherland, and Erzberger himself.
 
Renowned for his enthralling fictional accounts of historical events, award-winning author of Schindler’s List Thomas Keneally once again brings the heart-stopping human drama of history to life, as he brilliantly envisions the earth-shattering events that transpired in the forest of Compiègne, setting the stage for the Treaty of Versailles and the rise of the Third Reich.

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Thomas Keneally (b. 1935) is an Australian author of fiction, nonfiction, and plays, best known for his novel Schindler’s List. Inspired by the true story of Oskar Schindler’s courageous rescue of more than one thousand Jews during the Holocaust, the book was adapted into a film directed by Steven Spielberg, which won the 1993 Academy Award for Best Picture. Keneally was included on the Man Booker Prize shortlist three times—for his novels The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Gossip from the Forest, and Confederates—before winning the award for Schindler’s List in 1982. Keneally is active in Australian politics and is a founding member of the Australian Republican Movement, a group advocating for the nation to change its governance from a constitutional monarchy to a republic. In 1983 he was named an Officer of the Order of Australia for his achievements.