CHARLOTTE WOOD
  • Books
    • Stone Yard Devotional
    • The Luminous Solution
    • The Weekend
    • The Writer's Room
    • The Natural Way of Things
    • Love & Hunger
    • Animal People
    • Brothers & Sisters
    • The Children
    • The Submerged Cathedral
    • Pieces of a Girl
  • Interviews
  • Bio & photo
  • Contact
  • courses & workshops

The Weekend

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Four older women 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. They are Jude, a once-famous restaurateur; Wendy, an acclaimed public intellectual; and Adele, a renowned actress now mostly out of work. Struggling to recall exactly why they’ve remained close all these years, the grieving women gather at Sylvie’s old beach house — not for festivities this time, but to clean it out before it is sold. Can they survive together without her? Without Sylvie to maintain the group’s delicate equilibrium, frustrations build and painful memories press in. Fraying tempers, an elderly dog, unwelcome guests and too much wine collide in a storm that brings long-buried hurts to the surface— and threatens to sweep away their friendship for good.

The Weekend explores growing old and growing up, and what happens when we’re forced to uncover the lies we tell ourselves. Sharply observed and excruciatingly funny, this is a jewel of a book: a celebration of tenderness and friendship from an award-winning writer.

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Winner
2020 ABIA Literary Award for Literary Fiction Book of the Year
Shortlisted
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2020 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction
Shortlisted
​​2020 Australian Literary Society Gold Medal
Shortlisted
2020 Stella Prize

More about ​The Weekend

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The Weekend ​at Belvoir St Theatre
As part of its 2023 suite of productions, Belvoir St Theatre produced a stage adaptation of The Weekend by Charlotte Wood. The play ran from August 5 to September 10. The Weekend was adapted by Australian playwright and screenwriter, Sue Smith, a recipient of the Australian Writers' Guild's Lifetime Achievement Award. It was directed by the award-winning Australian director, Sarah Goodes, former Artistic Associate Director at the Melbourne Theatre Company. It starred actresses Melita Jurisic, Toni Scanlan, and Belinda Giblin, actor Roman Delo, and performance artist, Keila Terencio.

​Read more about the play here.

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Sydney Morning Herald
Amanda Hooton talks to Charlotte Wood about old age and the process of writing about older characters in ​The Weekend for Sydney Morning Herald.
Australian Financial Review
​Lauren Sams talks to Charlotte Wood about understanding older women and the research that informed her characters in The Weekend ​for the Australian Financial Review. 
"It captivated me from the opening chapter ... This wise, funny novel will help you understand yourself."
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- ​The Independent
“An insightful, poignant, and fiercely honest novel about female friendship and female aging.”

- Sigrid Nunez

"Wood has captured the zeitgeist again, with a mature ease that entertains even as it nudges our prejudices."

- The Guardian
"This is an illuminating novel of friendship, joy and hope, tempered by fear and sadness."

- ​The Canberra Times
"A lovely, lively, intelligent, funny book …  on aging and on the fraught, warm friendships between women.”

​- Tessa Hadley
​"Wood faces down the depressing and frightening things about old age and hints at things that might be used to soften them."

- Sydney Morning Herald

"The Weekend is one of those deceptively compact novels that continues to open doors in your mind long after the last page."

​- Patrick Gale

"Wood is to be praised for taking female friendship seriously and for being caustically honest – there’s not a sentimental line."
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- ​The Economist

More by Charlotte Wood

  • Books
    • Stone Yard Devotional
    • The Luminous Solution
    • The Weekend
    • The Writer's Room
    • The Natural Way of Things
    • Love & Hunger
    • Animal People
    • Brothers & Sisters
    • The Children
    • The Submerged Cathedral
    • Pieces of a Girl
  • Interviews
  • Bio & photo
  • Contact
  • courses & workshops