Jack Gance

A young pollster named Jack Gance becomes a savvy Washington political insider and eventually a U.S. senator - but not without paying the usual dues, which turns out to be a dirty business. Gance wastes his love on married women, but ultimately learns who his true mistress is: "I had arrived an apprentice from Chicago, but Washington had taken care of that. It was a great city. . . . It gave and gave and gave and gave and expected nothing in return but loyalty."

Ward Just is the author of fourteen previous novels, including the National book Award finalist Echo House and An Unfinished Season, winner of the Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Award. In a career that began as a war correspondent for Newsweek and the Washington Post, Just has lived and written in half a dozen countries, including Britain, France, and Vietnam. His characters often lead public lives as politicians, civil servants, soldiers, artists, and writers. It is the tension between public duty and private conscience that animates much of his fiction, including Forgetfulness. Just and his wife, Sarah Catchpole, divide their time between Martha’s Vineyard and Paris.