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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.
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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.
Jess has spent her whole life attending to the needs of others, from the lawyers and businessmen she types for, to her husband Ian and their son Daniel. But it’s now the year 2000: she’s a single divorcée, Daniel is grown, Ian is getting remarried, and Jess has no safety net and no superannuation. When a maternity leave cover position as secretary for an Australian judge at The Hague comes up, Jess jumps at the chance for financial stability and gets more than she bargained for. Her judge is presiding over the trial of a former military man charged with war crimes, ‘K’, in whom Jess recognises a persistent humanity, despite the unforgivable things of which he’s accused. When Jess must suddenly return to her birthplace, she discovers how much the experience of witnessing pain and the banality of cruelty has changed her.
Interspersed with real – but anonymised – witness statements, this book reckons with the devastating cost of war on the people left behind, and the impossible task of acknowledging that people can inflict terrible, unforgivable things on each other, while still remaining human. While initially the dense detail was slightly challenging to connect with, as we get to know Jess, we begin to understand that the minutiae she observes is just how she sees the world. After a lifetime of quietly managing other people’s expectations, Jess reveals an untapped emotional depth, presenting an unvarnished insight into the human condition.
A challenging, timely and thoughtful book, Out of the Woods does not invent history, using real witness statements to tell the horrifying story of the Srebrenica massacre in the Bosnian War, interwoven with the narrative of Jess’s personal quest to understand. Jess’s perspective on the world is richly detailed, compassionate and inescapably human – the good, the bad, and the painfully honest, in ways we don’t often allow ourselves.
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