This richly textured novel is about so many things that it’s hard to do justice to all of them. Ideas about friendship, ageing and grief keep sliding kaleidoscopically in and out of focus ... It has been said, as a criticism, that Wood writes only about middle-class people and preoccupations. But surely a novelist must be allowed her choice of subject matter, and in any case Wood is subverting it here by factoring in considerations of gender, which are too often ignored in this kind of reading. One of the underlying themes of this novel is the precarious nature of womanhood even in first-world societies: what seems to be social or financial or emotional security often turns out to be largely illusory ... Wood’s technique in this novel is masterly. There’s the minutely detailed observation, the delicate shifts in point of view, the variation of style to suit different scenes and moods, and the expert management of escalating drama and tension as the novel’s climax approaches and the friends are buffeted by wave after wave of dismay and grief ... Wood faces down the depressing and frightening things about old age and hints at things that might be used to soften them. Or even, if you’re lucky, to transcend them.
...[a] playful and moving feminist fairytale ... Wood has wisely not tried to outdo her own shock tactics. The Weekend, her sixth novel, returns to the qualities that had already built an admiring readership for her earlier books while being a more domesticated sister to its wild predecessor ... more Big Chill than Handmaid’s Tale, with a dash of Big Little Lies and an echo of Atwood’s The Robber Bride. Wood uses the classic theatrical set-up of a house party to concentrate tension in a tight space. If she were Agatha Christie this would lead to murder, but her characters’ emotional blow-ups are closer to those in David Williamson’s Don’s Party or Rachel Ward’s recent film Palm Beach ... Behind the laughs there is deep humanity, intellect and spirituality, qualities that mark The Weekend as much more than old-chook lit ... The Weekend is a novel about decluttering and real estate, about the geometry of friendship, about sexual politics, and about how we change, survive and ultimately die. Wood has captured the zeitgeist again, with a mature ease that entertains even as it nudges our prejudices.
...conceives of old age as a state of mutiny rather than stasis, a period of constant striving against the world, but also against oneself ... These women are living, not dying, even if the idea of mortality is now always staggering into the room. The best thing about this novel is its masterful condemnation of Montaigne’s expired thinking on its theme: 'Whoever saw old age,' he wrote, 'that did not applaud the past and condemn the present times?' Not nowadays. 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.
... a poignant tribute ... This book is wonderfully written from all three women’s points of view. The descriptions of scenery as well as the expressions of the characters really bring the story to life. The Weekend easily evokes feelings of sadness, happiness accompanied by tears, laughter, and sorrow. Although the plot itself is not complicated, it is a satisfyingly peaceful read.
...[a] warm, wise book ... [a] quietly radical tragicomedy. I was shocked by how unusual it felt to spend 275 pages exclusively in the company of older women. Whereas Late in the Day mines decades of romantic, sexual love, Wood’s novel is firmly about friendship ... The Weekend is a shortish novel that slips down easily. The plot ultimately lets in melodrama, and the prose...is hospitable to some automatic overwriting ... Yet with this ostensibly light touch, Wood commands the long histories of these three very different women. The focus is on the present; this is not a story about nostalgia or retrospect. But with a series of deft asides, we glean an account of their whole lives, through their memories of themselves and each other ... This is rich fictional territory and Wood has made the most of it in this surefooted novel that packs 50 years into one weekend.
Wood can be unflinching in her depiction of her characters’ flaws, so that her reader must sometimes do some excavation to find their best qualities. Here she’s struck just the right balance: none of these women is always easily likeable, but each is drawn with insight and sensitivity ... The narrative has a taut, restless energy, and a burgeoning sense of claustrophobia ... Wood’s writing continues to grow in assurance which each new work: never fussy, but grounded, and intensely physical; she prefers metaphor to simile, and it lends her prose a sense of immediacy ... While some of this material could have been heavy-handed, Wood makes it work, revealing the outsized forces of nature, the irresistible tides and encroaching horrors, that are part and parcel of our experience of the world.
... honest and humorous ... The story’s pacing is steady as the friendships’ dynamics are explored, but an oncoming storm—a metaphor for an inevitable shift—throws events into high gear. Unwelcome guests introduce an additional strand of rivalry, and the three friends must come together to defend themselves against this intruder, a testament to their loyalty despite everything going on between them ... Entertaining and insightful, Wood’s impressive novel captures characters who are hard to forget.
Wood has raised the age of her characters from her own. As narrator, she has greater wisdom than usual as she details the friends' shared experiences throughout the ageing process, although with optimism all three women try to maintain into older age ... presents a feminist camaraderie and a large repertoire of themes and symbols from the first to the last pages ... Wood's creative observation and ability to change the narrative between various points of view shows her signature at the book's ending.
...[a] dark, smart comedy of manners ... For a reader in or facing the demographic of Wood’s three friends, “The Weekend” is both fascinating and chilling. Not just the question of superannuated friendships, but also past-prime careers, aging bodies, senior finances and calcifying personality traits are all fairly coldly examined here ... At the very beginning of the book, Jude considers what her married lover believes is the real reason most men don’t read fiction. 'They would be led to understanding themselves, and it scared the [expletive] out of them.' Fortunately for Charlotte Wood, women readers are braver.
Third-person narration gives the reader equal time inside each character’s head, exposing their insecurities and vulnerabilities. Each woman is both endearing and exasperating—there are no heroes or villains, only ordinary, flawed people. This insightful character study will appeal to fans of Sue Miller and Anne Tyler.
Wood explores myriad possibilities of success, failure, philosophy, psychic ailments, and forms of melancholy that a 70-something woman might experience. While the qualities seem to be assigned almost at random to her characters, somewhat diminishing their effect...the women are mostly recognizable nonetheless, and painfully relatable. Baby boomers and Wood’s fans will best appreciate this astringent story.
Largely observing the classical unities of time, place, and action, Wood’s new novel plays out like a small theatrical drama, a chamber piece in which the three characters, both individually and as a group, confront the limits of their friendship ... The present is largely static until a big bang of a finale is set in motion. The novel displays wit, insight, and some astute social commentary, especially on the topic of age, but offers little in the way of engagement or surprises ... A neatly observed, tightly circumscribed journey into predictable territory.
