The Weekend
By Charlotte Wood
Published 2019
Read Sept 2025
This book tells about a short weekend at Christmas when three friends of forty odd years come together to clear out the vacation home of their recently departed friend, Sylvie. The friends have spent many Christmas holidays together at this vacation home together with Sylvie and have established some holiday routines which are disrupted this year, the first time they’ve been together at Sylvie’s place without Sylvie.
Adele is a still attractive actress, who has had little work lately and likely is homeless as her most recent relationship has apparently ended. She has many, perhaps, unattainable hopes about the immediate future which drives the single plot line occurring over this short period of time. Jude is a former restauranteur who is looking forward to her usual time alone at Sylvie’s place with her rich long-term lover. She is quite focused on getting the kitchen cleared out and is generally irritated by her friends’ inability to get on with their assignments as well as their expectation that she will prepare her usual specialties for Christmas dinner. Wendy is a widowed scholar who has brought her aging dog Finn, a gift from Sylvie, despite Jude’s insistence that she does not bring the dog. Finn is barely hanging onto life, and Jude believes she should have put the dog down some time ago.
We hear about each character both through their own voice as well as what her friends are thinking of her during this time together. We learn little about Sylvie except that her nameless lover has requested the friends clear out the house in any way they see fit. The friendship is long-lived, but perhaps Sylvie was the glue of that friendship as the overall friendship seems to be falling apart a bit or a lot.
This reader is also “of a certain age” and appreciated the questions the characters are asking themselves about their lives and their friendship. This character-driven book is told in a straightforward manner without a drop of sentimentality. This reader looks forward to reading more by this author.
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