Praise for The Weekend

Winner, 2020 Literary Fiction Book of the Year,

Australian Book Industry Awards

Shortlisted, 2020 Stella Prize

Shortlisted, 2020 Best Fiction, Indie Awards

Shortlisted, 2020 ALS Gold Medal

Shortlisted, 2020 Best Fiction, Prime Minister’s Literary Awards

Shortlisted, 2021 Christina Prize for Fiction, NSW Premier’s

Literary Awards

‘I plan to read this insightful, poignant and fiercely honest novel about female friendship and female ageing a second time, then seek out every other book its marvellous author has written.’

—SIGRID NUNEZ, author of the New York Times bestseller and National Book Award-winner The Friend

‘A compelling and vivid look at the friendships we make as women. Honest, unsettling and, like all good literature, had me asking questions about life and myself.’

—HEATHER ROSE, author of The Museum of Modern Love, winner of the 2017 Stella Prize

‘I read Charlotte Wood’s new novel, The Weekend, in one sitting. Here’s my verdict: wow, wow, wow, wow, wow … This is Wood’s greatest novel yet, and that’s saying something considering its predecessors … I had that strange feeling of realising my heart was beating too fast. Yet I hadn’t left the couch in a few hours, except to make a cup of tea.’

—STEPHEN ROMEI, Literary Editor, The Australian

‘An astute, tenderly funny novel about female friendship, ageing and loss.’

—Sunday Express

‘Friendship, ambition, love, sexual politics, and death: it’s all here in one sharp, funny, heartbreaking, and gorgeously written package. I loved it.’

—PAULA HAWKINS, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train

‘This richly textured novel is about so many things that it’s hard to do justice to all of them. Ideas about friendship, ageing and grief keep sliding kaleidoscopically in and out of focus … all the way from scenes of utter devastation to moments of laugh-out-loud comedy. But there’s something even deeper going on, something about existence itself, that circles around the ancient dog Finn … Wood’s technique in this novel is masterly.’

—KERRYN GOLDSWORTHY, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age

‘Authentic, funny, brutally well-observed … As with the novels of Elizabeth Strout or Anne Tyler, these are characters not written to please, but to feel true.’

—The Sunday Times

‘The Weekend by Charlotte Wood is acerbic brilliance … It is so great I am struggling to find the words to do it justice … Wood is an agonisingly gifted writer, so great at capturing micro-emotions, the complexity of friendship, love, mother-child tension, all done with breezy readability. At time it’s funny, thought-provoking, very moving. I care so much about the characters. I am now going to read all her other books!’

—MARIAN KEYES, author of Grown Ups

‘A witty, poignant portrait of female friendship.’

—Irish Independent