The Weekend
An unforgettable story of female friendship by the bestselling author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted Stone Yard Devotional
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- 42,00 kr
Publisher Description
'So great I am struggling to find the words to do it justice' Marian Keyes
A Book of the Year for The Times, Observer, Independent and Good Housekeeping
'A rare pleasure' Sunday Times
'Riveting' Elizabeth Day
'A perfect, funny, insightful, novel about women, friendship, and ageing' Nina Stibbe
'A lovely, lively, intelligent, funny book' Tessa Hadley
'Glorious . . . Charlotte Wood joins the ranks of writers such as Nora Ephron, Penelope Lively and Elizabeth Strout' Guardian
Sylvie, Jude, Wendy and Adele have been friends for decades, 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 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 threatens to sweep away their friendship for good.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Wood's sharp sixth novel (after The Natural Way of Things), three septuagenarian Aussie women gather to help settle the affairs of their dead friend, Sylvie. Jude, a cold-blooded restaurateur and for decades the mistress of a married man, takes charge of the friends' task of clearing out Sylvie's beach house, which is perched on a perilous cliff. Wendy, a bedraggled feminist academic still mourning the death of her husband, arrives with her decrepit dog, Finn, whose ailments mirror the women's own. Late, as usual, comes Adele, a once-celebrated actor who hasn't had a gig in some time. Together, the old friends begin sorting through Sylvie's things. Inevitably, in the process of clearing and discarding, the women unearth old irritations and a devastating secret, causing them to question how they'd ever become friends in the first place. 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 (Wood likens Wendy to Sontag even though she dresses like "a witless old hippie"), the women are mostly recognizable nonetheless, and painfully relatable. Baby boomers and Wood's fans will best appreciate this astringent story.
