The Weekend takes place, as you might expect, over a Christmas weekend during which three friends – Jude, Wendy and Adele – come together to clear out the coastal house of their friend Sylvie, who has died. They have been friends for decades and so their efforts are a final act of love for Sylvie. As the weekend progresses, though, their friendships, along with some deeply held beliefs, are tested.

The novel is told through alternating points of view interspersed with the memories of each of the three women. I loved this, because it allows the reader to get ‘into the head’ of all three main characters, and sometimes the same situation or event is recounted from alternate perspectives, giving real insight into their personalities. They are such different women, it seems miraculous that they could have become friends in the first place, let alone kept their connection over a long period of time. There is potent meaning associated with the minutiae of their lives: the food each one contributes to the weekend meals, their choice of (and attitude towards) clothing, the colour of nail polish and the like, become rich metaphors for the circumstances and approach to life of the characters. It is these differences that add tension, conflict and also laugh-out-loud moments to the narrative.

The author weaves in several contemporary issues as her characters move throughout their weekend together: homelessness amongst older single women, dwindling careers and perilous finances, attitudes of younger people towards ‘baby boomers’, dealing with dementia in failing parents, and conversely, the neglect and resentment women can experience from their adult children. There are astute observations on the physical, mental and emotional changes that occur with ageing:

It was true Wendy was further along the timeline of her life than she might prefer. This was obvious, and yet more and more she found, in place of urgency a kind of spongey spaciousness, commanding her to slow down.

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A motif for the ageing process is Finn, Wendy’s very old dog which accompanies her. Finn is deaf, incontinent, and suffering from a form of doggy dementia, but Wendy loves him and cannot contemplate having him put down. The women all react to Finn’s presence in ways that describe their personalities. Finn is a perfect symbol of the differences between them but also of the inexorable processes involved in ageing.

The women snipe, argue and resent each other’s idiosyncrasies during their time together, as only people who have known and loved each other for many years can. Yet their deep bonds of friendship and shared experience are clear.

Charlotte Wood demonstrates her profound grasp of the power of language, with acute descriptions of the women and their inner thoughts, including this one, as Wendy imagines how lovemaking between two acquaintances might look:

Wendy imagines him and Sonia wrestling slowly on a bed; one insect carefully devouring another.

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Or this:

Wendy looked around the street at the houses, the trees. At the world: the rich, tawdry, unjust, destroyed and beautiful world.

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This novel made me wince in recognition of all-too-common human foibles and at the trials we can subject our friends to. As a ‘woman of a certain age’, there was also recognition of some of the less celebrated aspects of growing older. There is pathos and sadness here, but also material that gave me satisfying belly-laughs and much that had me gasping at the beauty of the language.

The Weekend was published by Allen & Unwin in 2019.

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