The Weekend cover art

The Weekend

An unforgettable story of female friendship by the bestselling author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted Stone Yard Devotional

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The Weekend

By: Charlotte Wood
Narrated by: Brigid Lohrey
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About this listen

 A TIMES PAPERBACK OF THE YEAR
'So great I am struggling to find the words to do it justice' Marian Keyes
'Radical... I really recommend it' Pandora Sykes
'Riveting' Elizabeth Day
'A perfect, funny, insightful, novel about women, friendship, and ageing' Nina Stibbe
'A lovely, lively, intelligent, funny book' Tessa Hadley
'One sharp, funny, heartbreaking and gorgeously-written package' Paula Hawkins
'A rare pleasure... As with the novels of Elizabeth Strout or Anne Tyler, these are characters not written to please, but to feel true' The Sunday Times
'Glorious... Wood joins the ranks of writers such as Nora Ephron, Penelope Lively and Elizabeth Strout' Guardian

Sylvie, Jude, Wendy and Adele have a lifelong friendship of the best kind: loving, practical, frank and steadfast. But when Sylvie dies, the ground shifts dangerously for the remaining three.

These women couldn't be more different: Jude, a once-famous restaurateur with a spotless life and a long-standing affair with a married man; Wendy, an acclaimed feminist intellectual; Adele, a former star of the stage, now practically homeless.

Struggling to recall exactly why they've remained close all these years, the grieving women gather for one last weekend at Sylvie's old beach house. But fraying tempers, an elderly dog, unwelcome guests and too much wine collide in a storm that brings long-buried hurts to the surface - a storm that will either remind them of the bond they share, or sweep away their friendship for good. Aging Parents Death & Dying Fiction Friendship Genre Fiction Grief & Loss Literary Fiction Parenting & Families Personal Development Relationships Sociology Women's Fiction

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Critic reviews

The Weekend by Charlotte Wood is acerbic brilliance . . . It is so great I am struggling to find the words to do it justice . . . Wood is an agonisingly gifted writer, so great at capturing micro-emotions, the complexity of friendship, love, mother-child tension, all done with breezy readability. At times it's funny, thought-provoking, very moving. I care so much about the characters. I am now going to read all her other books! (Marian Keyes)
Old female characters don't often get to occupy centre stage in modern fiction, but Australian author Charlotte Wood's three 70-something protagonists in The Weekend are exquisitely drawn. All sorts of emotions and humorous situations erupt when the trio (and a dog) reunite for a weekend in New South Wales to clear out the decaying beach house of their recently dead friend Sylvie. As well as being a shrewd dissection of grief, regret and the realities of bodily decay, The Weekend triumphantly brings to life the honest, inner lives of three interesting women (Books of the Year)
A rare pleasure . . . Warm and wise . . . This unsentimental gaze is typical of Wood's quietly radical tragicomedy. I was shocked by how unusual it felt to spend 275 pages exclusively in the company of older women . . . With ostensibly light touch, Wood commands the long histories of these three very different women . . . A surefooted novel that packs 50 years into one weekend (Claire Lowden)
A glorious, forthright tale of female friendship . . . The temptation to reduce ageing to a condition experienced en masse rather than by individuals is a trap that snares only lesser writers. The better ones have avoided it - writers such as Nora Ephron and Penelope Lively, and, most recently, Elizabeth Strout. Joining their ranks is Australian Charlotte Wood, whose novel The Weekend conceives of old age as a state of mutiny rather than stasis, a period of constant striving against the world, but also against oneself . . . Masterful . . . What gives this novel its glorious, refreshing, forthright spine is that each of its protagonists is still adamantly (often disastrously) alive, and still less afraid of death than irrelevance (Sara Collins)
The Weekend captivated me from the excellent opening chapter . . . The three main characters - Jude, Adele and Wendy - are superbly drawn . . . Wood evocatively captures the pasts of these resilient women . . . The Weekend triumphantly brings to life the honest, inner lives of Jude, Adele and Wendy . . . This wise, funny novel will help you understand yourself - and it may scare the s*** out of anyone brave enough to confront the truths within its masterful pages
All stars
Most relevant
The dog wife present not for itself, but for the selfishness of one story details of friends reaching a certain age the life in this likes after their present and past life come together following the debt there are their close screen

Getting old and the realisation of what one go through which limited finance

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Although the book was well written and the characters interesting, the narration was terribly over-acted. I had to give up in the end. Too annoying.

Terrible narration

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I wasn’t sure that I was going to enjoy this book, notably because it took me quite a long time to decide to stick with it. The blurb about the book made it sound an interesting proposition, but the actuality was very different.

Basically the plot was about three friends getting together over the Christmas period to clear out their dead friend’s house. The four women had been friends for a long time and, as with all long friendships, there was a lot of history between them, some good and some incredibly bad. Overall, as the book progressed, I began to wonder why these three women were friends at all. There seemed to be a toxicity and narcissism at the heart of their relationship that would shatter an awful lot of friendships very quickly. How had these women survived as friends for so long?

The final third of the story became much more interesting to me and the final reveal of secrets and lies was its saving grace.

For me, the narration of the story was a basic problem. I did not enjoy the narrator’s voice and it spoiled the story for me.

Female friendship at its best and worst

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A rewarding but uncomfortable book. Age and friendship are the driving force of this tale but it’s about so much more. Unsettling read in parts but brilliant - and one you won’t forget. But the plodding over enunciated narration destroy it - read the book instead

Terrible narration spoilt this magnificent literary event

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I can’t truthfully comment on the story because I’m finding it impossible to get past the first 10 minutes. The narration is so slow and over dramatic that I just can’t bear to listen to it. It’s like listening to a ‘wannabe’ actress doing a over dramatised audition for an Ibsen play, or someone trying to explain a point, very slowly and clearly, to a listener who does not speak English. Appalling. I can’t get past the first chapter without giving up in frustration.

Unbearably S L O W!

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