Four hostile men carry an injured woman down a rough path in the Pyrenees. The men believe Florette, the woman, to be American, which increases their resentment, but she is French, though married to Thomas, an American ex-pat painter. Florette and Thomas live in a nearby village; she had just stepped out after Sunday lunch for a walk when she fell and broke her ankle. She doesn’t understand the men’s hostility, or why, before they make it down the mountain, they slit her throat.
Thus the reader of Ward Just’s haunting novel Forgetfulness plunges into the world of Thomas Railles the day his wife is murdered. The Pyrenees have long been threaded by routes trod by smugglers and outlaws of various kinds; but in this post-9/11 world Thomas’s two friends from the realm of American espionage quickly discover that the killers were Moroccan free-lance terrorists.
Thomas is not altogether a stranger to that realm. His friends Bernhard and Russ, whom he’s known since their childhood in the Midwest, were recruited into covert operations out of college, and they have drawn Thomas into their work from time to time. His involvement was peripheral, innocent on the face of it, and he’s never been informed of the context or consequences of his minor acts. Still, Thomas may have played a part in the betrayal of an elderly Spaniard he admired whose portrait he painted on behalf of his friends. Thomas quit his involvement but carries a sense of responsibility for the man’s murder. Thomas must contemplate whether Florette’s death is retribution for a previous act of his.
Forgetfulness has dramatic moments, and it has been compared to work by Le Carre, but Just’s focus is more subtle. In counterpoint to Thomas’ efforts to come to terms with Florette’s death, as well as his later chance to participate in the torture of her murderers, is the story of St. John Granger, another ex-pat in the village who went AWOL from the British army during the appalling carnage of the battle of Thiepval in World War I. His relatives judge him harshly, but Thomas does not. An angry and wounded American 9/11survivor deliberately picks fights with anyone he can in a village cafe, as if justified in seeking vengeance anytime, anywhere. Thus the author refracts and reflects our responses to horrific acts: fury, panic, the desire for vengeance, bewilderment, self-righteousness, guilt, even the desire for forgetfulness. Yet the juxtapositions ask us to look beyond these gut reactions to the cycles of mutual destruction that gave them birth. What, in the end, is a moral response?
The author of fourteen previous novels on the intersection of the political/historical and the private, as well as a former war correspondent, Just is well qualified to tackle his subject. He has produced a wise and surprisingly lovely book which, despite its title, will not easily be forgotten.
Thus the reader of Ward Just’s haunting novel Forgetfulness plunges into the world of Thomas Railles the day his wife is murdered. The Pyrenees have long been threaded by routes trod by smugglers and outlaws of various kinds; but in this post-9/11 world Thomas’s two friends from the realm of American espionage quickly discover that the killers were Moroccan free-lance terrorists.
Thomas is not altogether a stranger to that realm. His friends Bernhard and Russ, whom he’s known since their childhood in the Midwest, were recruited into covert operations out of college, and they have drawn Thomas into their work from time to time. His involvement was peripheral, innocent on the face of it, and he’s never been informed of the context or consequences of his minor acts. Still, Thomas may have played a part in the betrayal of an elderly Spaniard he admired whose portrait he painted on behalf of his friends. Thomas quit his involvement but carries a sense of responsibility for the man’s murder. Thomas must contemplate whether Florette’s death is retribution for a previous act of his.
Forgetfulness has dramatic moments, and it has been compared to work by Le Carre, but Just’s focus is more subtle. In counterpoint to Thomas’ efforts to come to terms with Florette’s death, as well as his later chance to participate in the torture of her murderers, is the story of St. John Granger, another ex-pat in the village who went AWOL from the British army during the appalling carnage of the battle of Thiepval in World War I. His relatives judge him harshly, but Thomas does not. An angry and wounded American 9/11survivor deliberately picks fights with anyone he can in a village cafe, as if justified in seeking vengeance anytime, anywhere. Thus the author refracts and reflects our responses to horrific acts: fury, panic, the desire for vengeance, bewilderment, self-righteousness, guilt, even the desire for forgetfulness. Yet the juxtapositions ask us to look beyond these gut reactions to the cycles of mutual destruction that gave them birth. What, in the end, is a moral response?
The author of fourteen previous novels on the intersection of the political/historical and the private, as well as a former war correspondent, Just is well qualified to tackle his subject. He has produced a wise and surprisingly lovely book which, despite its title, will not easily be forgotten.
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