Gossip from the Forest.

Gossip from the Forest (1975) by Thomas Keneally is a historical novel that reconstructs the final negotiations of the First World War through a fictionalized account of the 1918 armistice talks in the Forest of Compiègne. Centering on the Australian journalist and intermediary Ernest Cecil Gowers, the novel blends documented historical events with imagined dialogue and interior reflection to explore diplomacy, power, and moral responsibility at a moment of global transition. Keneally’s restrained narrative style emphasizes contingency and human fallibility, challenging heroic or triumphalist interpretations of the war’s end.