Out of the Woods

Gretchen Shirm

$34.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

Transit Lounge Publishing
01 April 2025

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

In the year 2000, an Australian woman travels to the Hague to work as the secretary for an Australian judge. There, she sits through the trial of a former military man who has been charged with war crimes. As the trial proceeds, she is confronted with two conflicting impulses: being deeply affected by the testimony of witnesses, while at the same time plagued by an enduring doubt as to the defendant's guilt.

Meanwhile, she begins an unexpected romance and friendship, and these relationships help her to understand the stories of extraordinary survival she hears about during the trial. When she is called back to Australia to reckon with her own childhood, she finds she can't quite leave everything she's heard behind. Out of the Woods asks what it means to bear witness to the suffering of people who have experienced real tragedy and whether it is possible, afterwards, to resume a normal life.

'A triumph. Out of the Woods traces the complex lines of complicity and grief

a deeply compelling and humane story about what it means to bear witness. This is a book that looks into your soul.'

Stephanie Bishop

'This searchingly original novel counters the historical weight of human cruelty with small acts of attention and persistence. Shirm's empathy and intelligent precision exert a quiet moral authority on every page.'

Delia Falconer

By: Gretchen Shirm
Imprint: Transit Lounge Publishing
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm,
ISBN: 9781923023314
ISBN 10: 1923023314
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 01 April 2025
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Gretchen Shirm is the author of Having Cried Wolf, Where the Light Falls and The Crying Room. She was a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist and both her novels Where the Light Falls and The Crying Room were shortlisted for the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the NSW Premier's Awards. In 20232024 she received the BR Whiting Fellowship from Creative Australia. Gretchen's short fiction has been published in Best Australian Stories, Griffith Review, The Australian, Overland, Meanjin and Southerly. Her literary criticism is published widely, including in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Weekend Australian. Gretchen worked as a public law lawyer for more than a decade and now teaches creative writing.