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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'The brilliant new novel from Charlotte Wood, acclaimed author of The Natural Way of Things .
'People went on about death bringing friends together, but it wasn't true. The graveyard, the stony dirt - that's what it was like now. They knew each other better than their own siblings, but Sylvie's death had opened up strange caverns of distance between them.
'Four older women with a lifelong friendship of the best kind: loving, practical, frank and steadfast. But when Sylvie dies, the ground shifts dangerously for the remaining three. Can they survive together without her?
'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 for Christmas at Sylvie's old beach house - not for festivities, but to clean the place out before it is sold.
'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 that is nothing short of a masterpiece.' (Publication summary)
Adaptations
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The Weekend
2023
single work
drama
'“People went on about death bringing friends together, but it wasn’t true…”
'Four women have known each other for decades, and have a friendship that goes with it – good-humoured, caring, and forthright when required. But Sylvie has died, and when the remaining three come together to pack up her beach house, they find maybe they haven’t been as honest – or as good friends – as they thought.
'Adele, a once-well-known actress, Wendy, a high-profile academic, and Jude, who ran one of the city’s most celebrated restaurants, learn things they should have learned years ago. There’s a difference between growing old, and growing wise.
'And at the heart of it all, an old dog keeps them company, silently bearing witness to the folly of age, and the warmth of true friendship.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Notes
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This book has been selected for Guardian Australia’s series The Unmissables, highlighting the most notable Australian books of the year.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Large print.
- Sound recording.
- Dyslexic edition.
Works about this Work
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Transnationalism and the Literary Reception of Australian Women Writers’ Fiction in the US, 2010–2020 : Three Case Studies
2024
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 48 no. 1 2024; (p. 33-47)'The following article examines how Australian literary fiction by women is received in the United States. In particular, it considers how books are positioned by publishers, reviewers and authors as relevant to an American audience as well as to what extent Australian literary fiction’s appeal is borne out in reviews and in an online forum, Goodreads. To address these questions, I examine the US reception of three diverse literary novels by Australian women: Waanyi author Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book (Atria Books, 2016), Charlotte Wood’s The Weekend (Riverhead, 2020), and Michelle de Kretser’s Questions of Travel (Little, Brown, 2013). I argue that recent Australian literary fiction by women makes an appeal to US readers through a combination of “transnational orientation”—or ideas, characters and settings that a novel evokes to address a global readership—which are leveraged by publishers in book design and endorsements, and “authorial disambiguation”, in the form of essays and websites written by authors and addressed to local and global readers. Efforts to draw attention to a novel’s currency for a US audience are unevenly evident in reviews in broadsheets and trade publications, as well as on Goodreads.' (Publication abstract)
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Contemplating Affects : The Mystery of Emotion in Charlotte Wood’s The Weekend
2021
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Rise of the Australian Neurohumanities : Conversations Between Neurocognitive Research and Australian Literature 2021;'In this chapter, I explore my affective engagement with Charlotte Wood’s The Weekend (2019). Adopting definitions that reveal the nested hierarchies of feeling, affect, and emotion, I situate emotion as a semantic experience within the framework of thought, arguing that thought itself is an affectual process that carries meaning. Cognition, in other words, is an affective process. Thought’s affectual status is often overlooked, however, with the focus on its semantic content drawing attention from this; yet meaning affects us, and this is the function of thought as affect: it organises experience in ways that are, in turn, affecting. My approach to Wood’s novel aims to emphasise this and find firmer ground on which to perceive emotion as a kind of thought, noting that reading stimulates thinking in terms of grammatically established points of view.'
Source: Abstract.
-
Experiments in the Art of Living : Rethinking the Mythology of the Generations
2020
single work
essay
— Appears in: Griffith Review , April no. 68 2020; (p. 260-267) 'A few years ago, a pretty young woman approached me in the lunch room of the building where I began work on my novel, The Weekend (Allen & Unwin, 2019). -
Stella Prize 2020 : A Readers’ Guide to the Contenders
2020
single work
— Appears in: The Conversation , 27 March 2020;'Words can help us imagine the world more deeply. Even as we retreat into our homes in this time of crisis, words can help us reach out to each other and pile up strength.' (Publication summary)
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Books Roundup
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , November 2019;
— Review of Being Black 'n Chicken, and Chips 2019 single work novel ; The Weekend 2019 single work novel ; In This Desert, There Were Seeds 2019 anthology short story
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The Weekend : Charlotte Wood
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: The Monthly , October no. 160 2019; (p. 89)
— Review of The Weekend 2019 single work novel -
The Ghost Creature : The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , October 2019;
— Review of The Weekend 2019 single work novel'In 2016 Charlotte Wood took up a position as Writer in Residence at the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre, as part of a multidisciplinary initiative to explore ‘the complex issue of aging’. The product of that residence is The Weekend, Wood’s sixth novel, and it comes highly anticipated on the heels of her 2016 Stella Prize-winner The Natural Way of Things.' (Introduction)
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Fragile Friendships at Mercy of Grief
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 19 October 2019; (p. 23)
— Review of The Weekend 2019 single work novelTake your seats. There is a play, a drama of contained human collision, lurking under the surface of Charlotte Wood’s new novel, The Weekend.' (Introduction)
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Dreams and Beasts : Charlotte Wood's Shell-Like New Novel
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , November no. 416 2019; (p. 32-34)
— Review of The Weekend 2019 single work novel'‘What kind of game is the sea?’ asks the speaker of Tracy K. Smith’s poem ‘Minister of Saudade’. ‘Lap and drag’, comes the response, ‘Crag and gleam / That continual work of wave / And tide’. It is not until the end of The Weekend that the sea’s majestic game is brought into focus, and then the natural world rises, a riposte, to eclipse human trivia.' (Introduction)
-
Books Roundup
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , November 2019;
— Review of Being Black 'n Chicken, and Chips 2019 single work novel ; The Weekend 2019 single work novel ; In This Desert, There Were Seeds 2019 anthology short story -
Charlotte Wood Captures the Feminist Zeitgeist Again in The Weekend
2019
single work
column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 14 October 2019;'A more domesticated sister to the wild, zeitgeist-capturing The Natural Way of Things, The Weekend distils the qualities that built Wood an admiring readership.' (Introduction)
-
Stella Prize 2020 : A Readers’ Guide to the Contenders
2020
single work
— Appears in: The Conversation , 27 March 2020;'Words can help us imagine the world more deeply. Even as we retreat into our homes in this time of crisis, words can help us reach out to each other and pile up strength.' (Publication summary)
-
Experiments in the Art of Living : Rethinking the Mythology of the Generations
2020
single work
essay
— Appears in: Griffith Review , April no. 68 2020; (p. 260-267) 'A few years ago, a pretty young woman approached me in the lunch room of the building where I began work on my novel, The Weekend (Allen & Unwin, 2019). -
Contemplating Affects : The Mystery of Emotion in Charlotte Wood’s The Weekend
2021
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Rise of the Australian Neurohumanities : Conversations Between Neurocognitive Research and Australian Literature 2021;'In this chapter, I explore my affective engagement with Charlotte Wood’s The Weekend (2019). Adopting definitions that reveal the nested hierarchies of feeling, affect, and emotion, I situate emotion as a semantic experience within the framework of thought, arguing that thought itself is an affectual process that carries meaning. Cognition, in other words, is an affective process. Thought’s affectual status is often overlooked, however, with the focus on its semantic content drawing attention from this; yet meaning affects us, and this is the function of thought as affect: it organises experience in ways that are, in turn, affecting. My approach to Wood’s novel aims to emphasise this and find firmer ground on which to perceive emotion as a kind of thought, noting that reading stimulates thinking in terms of grammatically established points of view.'
Source: Abstract.
-
Transnationalism and the Literary Reception of Australian Women Writers’ Fiction in the US, 2010–2020 : Three Case Studies
2024
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 48 no. 1 2024; (p. 33-47)'The following article examines how Australian literary fiction by women is received in the United States. In particular, it considers how books are positioned by publishers, reviewers and authors as relevant to an American audience as well as to what extent Australian literary fiction’s appeal is borne out in reviews and in an online forum, Goodreads. To address these questions, I examine the US reception of three diverse literary novels by Australian women: Waanyi author Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book (Atria Books, 2016), Charlotte Wood’s The Weekend (Riverhead, 2020), and Michelle de Kretser’s Questions of Travel (Little, Brown, 2013). I argue that recent Australian literary fiction by women makes an appeal to US readers through a combination of “transnational orientation”—or ideas, characters and settings that a novel evokes to address a global readership—which are leveraged by publishers in book design and endorsements, and “authorial disambiguation”, in the form of essays and websites written by authors and addressed to local and global readers. Efforts to draw attention to a novel’s currency for a US audience are unevenly evident in reviews in broadsheets and trade publications, as well as on Goodreads.' (Publication abstract)
Awards
- 2021 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
- 2020 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards — Fiction
- 2020 shortlisted Booksellers Choice Award BookPeople Book of the Year — Adult Fiction Book of the Year
- 2020 shortlisted ASAL Awards — ALS Gold Medal
- 2020 longlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award